/      BERKELiY\ 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
V^  CALIFORNIA^/ 


SATAN  SANDERSON 


•Bonks  far 
HALLIE  ERMINIE  RIVES 

(Mrs.  Post  Wheeler) 
A  FURNACE  OF  EARTH 

HEARTS  COURAGEOUS 
Illustrated  by  A.  B.  Wenzell 

THE  CASTAWAY 

Illustrated  by  Howard  Chandler  Christy 

TALES  FROM  DICKENS 

Illustrated  by  Reginald  B.  Birch 

SATAN  SANDERSON 

Illustrated  by  A.  B.  Wenzell 


SATAN  SANDERSON 


Bg 

HALLIE  ERMINIE  RIVES 

Author  of 
The  Castaway,  Hearts  Courageous,  etc. 


With  Illustrations  by 

A.  B.  WENZELL 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT  1907 
THE  BOBBS-MEKRILL  COMPANY 


AUGUST 


••L  CO. 

;  CR  NTERS 
N.  Y. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  As  A  MAN  Sows            ....            1 

II  DOCTOR  MOREAU            .            •            .            .          15 

III  THE  COMING  or  A  PRODIGAL  .          20 

IV  THE  LANE  THAT  HAD  No  TURNING      .  .          32 
V  THE  BISHOP  SPEAKS      ....          47 

VI  WHAT  CAME  or  A  WEDDING      ...           50 

VII  OUT  OF  THE  DARK         .            .            .             .60 

VIII  "AM  I  Mr  BROTHER'S  KEEPER?"          .            .          68 

IX  AFTER  A  YEAR               ....           75 

X  THE  GAME        .....           85 

XI  HALLELUJAH  JONES  TAKES  A  HAND      .            .          95 

XII  THE  FALL  or  THE  CURTAIN       .             .            .         105 

XIII  THE  CLOSED  DOOR        .  .             .             .108 

XIV  THE  WOMAN  WHO  REMEMBERED           .  .115 
XV  THE  MAN  WHO  HAD  FORGOTTEN          .             .         125 

XVI  THE  AWAKENING            ....         137 

XVII  AT  THE  TURN  or  THE  TRAIL     .            .            .        147 

XVIII  THE  STRENGTH  or  THE  WEAK  .             .             .155 

XIX  THE  EVIL  EYE               .            .             .            .160 

XX  MRS.  HALLORAN  TELLS  A  STOKY           .             .         167 

XXI  A  VISIT  AND  A  VIOLIN              .            .            .171 

XXII  THE  PASSING  OF  PRENDERGAST              .             .         179 

XXIII  A  RACE  WITH  DEATH  ....         187 

XXIV  ON  SMOKY  MOUNTAIN    .  .             .             .198 


726 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXV  THE  OPEN  WINDOW       ....        210 

XXVI  LIKE  A  THIEF  IN  THE  NIGHT     .            .            .222 

XXVII  INTO  THE  GOLDEN  SUNSET         .            .            .229 

XXVIII  THE  TENANTLESS  HOUSE            ...         238 

XXIX  THE  CALL  OF  LOVE       ....        250 

XXX  IN  A  FOREST  OF  ARDEN             .            .            .259 

XXXI  THE  REVELATION  or  HALLELUJAH  JONES         .         269 

XXXII  THE  WHITE  HORSE  SKIN           .            .            .277 

XXXIII  THE  RENEGADE  .            .            .            .282 

XXXIV  THE  TEMPTATION           .  .            .            .289 
XXXV  FELDER  TAKES  A  CASE               .            .             .302 

XXXVI  THE  HAND  AT  THE  DOOR           .            .             .305 

XXXVII  THE  PENITENT  THIEF    .            .            .            .311 

XXXVIII  A  DAY  FOR  THE  STATE             .            .            .319 

XXXIX  THE  UNSUMMONED  WITNESS     .            .             .331 

XL  FATE'S  WAY      .....        335 

XLI  FELDER  WALKS  WITH  DOCTOR  BRENT              .        339 

XLII  THE  RECKONING             .            .            .            .        344 

XLI  1 1  THE  LITTLE  GOLD  CROSS          .            .            .        353 

XLIV  THE  IMPOSTOR  .....        360 

XLV  AN  APPEAL  TO  CESAR               .            .            .369 

XLVI  FACE  TO  FACE   .....        376 

XLVII  BETWEEN  THE  MILLSTONES        .            •            .        384 

XLVIII  THE  VERDICT     .....        390 

XLIX  THE  CRIMSON  DISK       .            .            .            .395 

L  WHEN  DREAMS  COME  TRUI      ...        397 


SATAN  SANDERSON 


SATAN  SANDEESON 

CHAPTER   I 

AS   A   MAtf   SOWS 

"To  my  son  Hugh,  in  retwn  for  the  care  and  sorrow 
he  has  caused  me  all  the  days  of  his  life,  for  his  disso 
lute  career  and  his  desertion,  I  do  give  and  bequeath 
the  sum  of  one  thousand  dollars  and  the  memory  of  his 
misspent  youth" 

It  was  very  quiet  in  the  wide,,  richly  furnished  library. 
The  May  night  was  still,  but  a  faint  suspiration,  heavy 
with  the  fragrance  of  jasmin  flowers,  stirred  the  Vene 
tian  blind  before  the  open  window  and  rustled  the 
moon-silvered  leaves  of  the  aspens  outside.  As  the  in 
cisive  professional  pronouncement  of  the  judge  cut 
through  the  lamp-lighted  silence,  the  grim,  furrowed 
face  with  its  sunken  eyes  and  gray  military  mustaches 
on  the  pillow  of  the  wheel-chair  set  more  grimly;  a 
girl  seated  in  the  damask  shadow  of  the  fire-screen 
caught  her  breath;  and  from  across  the  polished  table 
the  Reverend  Henry  Sanderson  turned  his  handsome, 
clean-shaven  face  and  looked  at  the  old  man. 

1 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

A  peevish  misogynist  the;  neighborhood  labeled  the 
latter,  with  the  parish  chapel  for  hobby,  and  for  thorn- 
in-the-flesh  this  only  son  Hugh,  a  black  sheep  whose 
open  breaches  of  decorum  the  town  had  borne  as  best  it 
might,  till  the  tradition  of  his  forebears  took  him  off 
to  an  eastern  university.  A  reckless  life  there  and 
three  wastrel  years  abroad,  had  sent  him  back  to  resume 
his  peccadilloes  on  a  larger  scale,  to  quarrel  bitterly 
with  his  father,  and  to  leave  his  home  in  anger.  In 
what  rough  business  of  life  was  Hugh  now  chewing  the 
cud  of  his  folly  ?  Harry  Sanderson  was  wondering. 

"Wait,"  came  the  querulous  voice  from  the  chair. 
"Write  in  'graceless'  before  the  word  'desertion'." 

"For  his  dissolute  career  and  his — graceless — deser 
tion"  repeated  the  lawyer,  the  parchment  crackling 
under  his  pen. 

The  stubborn  antagonism  that  was  a  part  of  David 
Stires'  nature  flared  under  the  bushy  eyebrows.  "As  a 
man  sows  I"  he  said,  a  kind  of  bitter  jocularity  in  the 
tone,  "That  should  be  the  text,  if  this  sermon  of  mine 
needed  any,  Sanderson!  It  won't  have  as  large  an 
audience  as  your  discourses  draw,  but  it  will  be  remem 
bered  by  one  of  its  hearers,  at  least." 

Judge  Conwell  glanced  curiously  at  Harry  'Sander 
son  as  he  blotted  the  emendation.  He  knew  the  liking 


AS   A   MAN   SOWS 

of  the  cross-grained  and  taciturn  old  invalid — St.  James* 
richest  parishioner — for  this  young  man  of  twenty-five 
who  had  come  to  the  parish  only  two  months  before, 
fresh  from  his  theological  studies,  to  fill  a  place  tem 
porarily  vacant — and  had  stayed  by  sheer  force  of  per 
sonality.  He  wondered  if,  aside  from  natural  magnetic 
qualities,  this  liking  had  not  been  due  first  of  all  to 
the  curious  resemblance  between  the  young  minister 
sand  the  absent  son  whom  David  Stires  was  disinherit 
ing.  For,  as  far  as  mold  of  feature  went,  the  young 
minister  and  the  ne'er-do-well  might  have  been  twin 
brothers;  yet  a  totally  different  manner  and  coloring 
made  this  likeness  rather  suggestive  than  striking. 

No  one,  perhaps,  had  ever  interested  the  community 
more  than  had  Harry  Sanderson.  He  had  entered  upon 
his  duties  with  the  marks  of  youth,  good  looks,  self- 
possession  and  an  ample  income  thick  upon  him,  and 
had  brought  with  him  a  peculiar  charm  of  manner  and 
an  apparent  incapacity  for  doing  things  in  a  hackneyed 
way.  Convention  sat  lightly  upon  Harry  Sanderson. 
He  recognized  few  precedents,  either  in  the  new  meth 
ods  and  millinery  with  which  he  had  invested  the 
service,  or  in  his  personal  habits.  Instead  of  attending 
the  meeting  of  St.  Andrew's  Guild,  after  the  constant 
custom  of  his  predecessor,  he  was  apt  to  be  found  play- 

3 


SATAN   BANDEBSON 

ing  his  violin  (a  passion  with  him)  in  the  smart  study 
that  adjoined  the  Gothic  chapel  where  he  shepherded 
his  fashionable  flock,  or  tramping  across  the  country 
with  a  briar  pipe  in  his  mouth  and  his  brown  spaniel 
"Rummy"  nosing  at  his  heels.  His  athletic  frame  and 
clean-chiselled  features  made  him  a  rare  figure  for  the 
reading-desk,  as  his  violin  practice,  the  cut  of  his  golf- 
flannels,  the  immaculate  elegance  of  his  motor-car — even 
the  white  carnation  he  affected  in  his  buttonhole — 
made  him  for  the  younger  men  a  goodly  pattern  of  the 
cloth;  and  it  had  speedily  grown  to  be  the  fashion  to 
hear  the  brilliant  young  minister,  to  memorize  his 
classical  aphorisms  or  to  look  up  his  latest  quotation 
from  Keats  or  Walter  Pater.  So  that  Harry  Sander 
son,  whose  innovations  had  at  first  disturbed  and  ruffled 
the  sensibilities  of  those  who  would  have  preferred  a 
fogy,  in  the  end  had  drifted,  apparently  without  special 
effort,  into  a  far  wider  popularity  than  that  which 
bowed  to  the  whim  of  the  old  invalid  in  the  white  house 
in  the  aspens. 

Something  of  all  this  was  in  the  lawyer's  mind  as  he 
paused — a  perfunctory  pause — before  he  continued: 

"  ...  I  do  give  and  bequeath  the  sum  of  one 
thousand  dollars,  and  the  memory  of  his  misspent 
youth." 


AS   A   MAN   SOWS 

Harry  Sanderson's  eyes  had  wandered  from  the  chair 
to  the  slim  figure  of  the  girl  who  sat  by  the  screen.  This 
was  Jessica  Holme,  the  orphaned  daughter  of  a  friend 
of  the  old  man's  early  years,  who  had  recently  come  to 
the  house  in  the  aspens  to  fill  the  void  left  by  Hugh's 
departure.  Harry  could  see  the  contour  of  throat  and 
wrists,  the  wild-rose  mesh  of  the  skin  against  the  Eom- 
ney-blue  gown,  the  plenteous  red-bronze  hair  uncoiled 
and  falling  in  a  single  braid,  and  the  shadowy  pathos  of 
her  eyes.  Clear  hazel  eyes  they  were,  wide  and  full,  but 
there  was  in  them  no  depth  of  expression — for  Jessica 
Holme  was  blind.  As  the  crisp  deliberate  accent  pointed 
the  judicial  period,  as  with  a  subterranean  echo  of  ir 
refutable  condemnation,  Harry  saw  her  under  lip  in 
drawn,  her  hands  clasp  tightly,  then  unclasp  in  her  lap. 
Pliant,  graceful  hands,  he  thought,  which  even  blind 
ness  could  not  make  maladroit.  In  the  chapel  porch 
stood  the  figure  of  an  angel  which  she  had  modelled 
solely  by  the  wonderful  touch  in  the  finger-tips. 

"Go  on/'  rasped  the  old  man. 

"The  residue  of  my  estate,  real  and  personal,  I  do 
give  and  bequeath  to  my  ward,  Jessica  Holme,  to  be  and 
become — " 

He  broke  off  suddenly,  for  the  girl  was  kneeling  by 
the  chair,  groping  for  the  restless  hand  that  wandered 

5 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

on  the  afghan,  and  crying  in  a  strained,  agitated  voice: 
"No  ...  no  ...  you  must  not!  Please, 
please !  I  never  could  bear  it !" 

"Why  not?"  The  old  man's  irritant  query  was  bellig 
erent.  "Why  not  ?  What  is  there  for  you  to  bear,  I'd 
like  to  know !" 

"He  is  your  son !" 

"In  the  eyes  of  the  law,  yes.  But  not  otherwise!" 
His  voice  rose.  "What  has  he  done  to  deserve  anything 
from  me?  What  has  he  had  all  his  life  but  kindness? 
And  how  has  he  repaid  it?  By  being  a  waster  and  a 
prodigal.  By  setting  me  in  contempt,  and  finally  by  for 
saking  me  in  my  old  age  for  his  own  paths  of  ribaldry." 

The  girl  shook  her  head.  "You  don't  know  where  he 
is  now,  or  what  he  is  doing.  Oh,  he  was  wild  and  reck 
less,  I  have  no  doubt.  But  when  he  quarrelled  and  left 
you,  wasn't  it  perhaps  because  he  was  too  quick-tem 
pered  ?  And  if  he  hasn't  come  back,  isn't  it  perhaps  be 
cause  he  is  too  proud?  Why,  he  wouldn't  be  your  son 
if  he  weren't  proud!  No  matter  how  sorry  he  might 
be,  it  would  make  no  difference  then.  I  could  give  him 
the  money  you  had  given  me,  but  I  couldn't  change  the 
fact.  You,  his  own  father,  would  have  disowned  him, 
disinherited  him,  taken  away  his  birthright !" 

"And  richly  he'd  deserve  it!"  he  snapped,  his  bent 

6 


AS   A  MAN   SOWS 

fingers  plucking  angrily  at  the  wool  of  the  afghan.  "He 
doesn't  want  a  father  or  a  home.  He  wants  his  own 
way  and  a  freedom  that  is  license !  I  know  him.  You 
don't ;  you  never  saw  him." 

"I  never  saw  you  either,"  she  said,  a  little  sadly. 

"Come,"  he  answered  a  shade  more  gently.  "I  didn't 
mean  your  eyes,  my  dear!  I  mean  that  you  never  met 
him  in  your  life.  He  had  shaken  off  the  dust  of  his 
feet  against  this  house  before  you  came  to  brighten  it, 
Jessica.  I've  not  forgiven  him.  seven  times;  I've  for 
given  him  seventy  times  seven.  But  he  doesn't  want 
forgiveness.  To  him  I  am  only  fthe  old  man'  who  re 
fused  to  'put  up'  longer  for  his  fopperies  and  extrava 
gances!  When  he  left  this  house  six  months  ago,  he 
declared  he  would  never  enter  it  again.  Very  well — let 
him  stay  away !  He  shan't  come  back  when  I  am  in  my 
grave,  to  play  ducks  and  drakes  with  the  money  he  mis 
uses  !  And  I've  fixed  it  so  that  you  won't  be  able  to  give 
it  away  either,  Jessica.  Give  me  the  pen,"  he  said  to 
the  judge,  "and,  Sanderson,  will  you  ring?  We  shall 
need  the  butler  to  witness  with  you." 

As  Harry  Sanderson  rose  to  his  feet  the  girl,  still 
kneeling,  turned  half  about  with  a  hopeless  gesture. 
"Oh,  won't  you  help  me  ?"  she  said.  She  spoke  more  to 
herself,  it  seemed,  than  to  either  of  the  men  who  waited. 


SATAN   SANDEBSON 

Harry's  face  was  in  the  shadow.  The  lawyer  with 
careful  deliberation  was  putting  a  new  pen  into  the 
holder. 

"Sanderson/'  said  the  old  man  with  bitter  fierceness, 
lifting  his  hand,  "I  dare  say  you  think  I  am  hard ;  but 
I  tell  you  there  has  never  been  a  day  since  Hugh  was 
born  when  I  wouldn't  have  laid  down  my  life  for  him ! 
You  are  so  like !  When  I  look  at  you,  I  seem  to  see  him 
as  he  might  have  been  but  for  his  own  wayward  choice ! 
If  he  were  only  as  like  you  in  other  things  as  he  is  in 
feature !  You  are  nearly  the  same  age ;  you  went  to  the 
same  college,  1  believe;  you  have  had  the  same  advan 
tages  and  the  same  temptations.  Yet  you,  an  orphan, 
come  out  a  divinity  student,  and  Hugh — my  son! — 
comes  out  a  roisterer  with  gambling  debts,  a  member  of 
the  'fast  set,'  one  of  a  dissolute  fraternity  known  as  'The 
Saints,'  whose  very  existence,  no  doubt,  was  a  shame  to 
the  institution !" 

Harry  Sanderson  turned  slowly  to  the  light.  A 
strange  panorama  in  that  moment  had  flashed  through 
his  brain — kaleidoscopic  pictures  of  an  earlier  reckless 
era  when  he  had  not  been  known  as  the  "Keverend 
Henry  Sanderson."  An  odd,  sensitive  flush  burned  his 
forehead.  The  hand  he  had  outstretched  to  the  bell-cord 
dropped  to  his  side,  and  he  said,  with  painful  steadiness : 

8 


AS    A   MAST   SOFT'S 

"I  think  I  ought  to  say  that  I  was  the  founder,  and 
at  the  time  you  speak  of,  the  Abbot  of  The  Saints." 

The  pen  rattled  against  the  mahogany,  as  the  man  of 
law  leaned  back  to  regard  the  speaker  with  a  stare  of 
surprise  whetted  with  a  keen  edge  of  satiric  amusement. 
The  old  man  sat  silent,  and  the  girl  crouched  by  the 
chair  with  parted  lips.  The  look  in  Harry's  face  was 
not  now  that  of  the  decorative  young  churchman  of  the 
Sabbath  surplice.  It  held  a  keen  electric  sense  of  the 
sharp  contrasts  of  life,  touched  with  a  wakeful  pain  of 
conscience. 

"I  was  in  the  same  year  with  Hugh/'  Harry  went  on. 
"We  sowed  our  wild  oats  together — a  tidy  crop,  I  fancy, 
for  us  both.  That  page  of  my  life  is  pasted  down.  I 
speak  of  it  now  because  it  would  be  cowardly  not  to.  I 
have  not  seen  Hugh  since  college  closed  four  years  ago. 
But  then  I  was  all  you  have  called  him — a  waster  and 
a  prodigal.  And  I  was  more ;  for  while  others  followed, 
I  led.  At  college  I  was  known  as  'Satan  Sanderson'." 

He  stopped.  The  old  man  cleared  his  throat,  but  did 
not  speak.  He  was  looking  at  Harry  fixedly.  In  the 
pause  the  girl  found  his  gnarled  hand  and  laid  her  cheek 
against  it.  Harry  leaned  an  elbow  upon  the  mantel 
piece  as  he  continued,  in  a  low  voice : 

"Colleges  are  not  moral  strait-jackets.  Men  have 
9 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

there  to  cast  about,  try  themselves  and  find  their  bear 
ings.  They  are  in  hand-touch  with  temptation,  and  out 
of  earshot  of  the  warnings  of  experience.  The  mental 
and  moral  machine  lacks  a  governor.  Slips  of  the  cog 
then  may  or  may  not  count  seriously  to  character  in  the 
end.  They  sometimes  signify  only  a  phase.  They  may 
be  mere  idiosyncrasy.  I  have  thought  that  it  stood  in 
this  case/'  he  added  with  the  glimmer  of  a  smile,  "with 
Satan  Sanderson;  he  seems  to  me  from  this  focus  to 
be  quite  another  individual  from  the  present  rector  of 
St.  James." 

"It  is  only  the  Hugh  of  the  present  that  I  am  dealing 
with,"  interposed  the  old  man.  For  David  Stires  was 
just  and  he  was  feeling  a  grim  respect  for  Harry's  hon 
esty. 

Harry  acknowledged  the  brusque  kindliness  of  the 
tone  with  a  little  motion  of  the  hand.  As  he  spoke  he 
had  been  feeling  his  way  through  a  maze  of  contradic 
tory  impulses.  For  a  moment  he  had  been  back  in  that 
old  irresponsible  time;  the  Hugh  he  had  known  then 
had  sprung  to  his  mind's  eye — an  imitative  idler,  with 
a.  certain  grace  and  brilliancy  of  manner  that  made 
him  hail-fellow-well-met,  but  withal  shallow,  foppish 
and  incorrigible,  a  cheap  and  shabby  imitator  of  the 
outward  manner,  not  the  inner  graces,  of  good-fellow- 

10 


AS    A   MAN"   SOWS 

ship.  Yet  Hugh  had  been  one  of  his  own  "fast  set"; 
they  had  called  him  "Satan's  shadow,"  a  tribute  to  the 
actual  resemblance  as  well  as  to  the  palpable  imitation 
he  affected.  Harry  shivered  a  little.  The  situation 
seemed,  in  antic  irony,  to  be  reversing  itself.  It  was 
as  if  not  alone  Hugh,  but  he,  Harry  Sanderson,  in  the 
person  of  that  past  of  his,  was  now  brought  to  bar  for 
judgment  in  that  room.  For  the  instant  he  forgot  how 
utterly  characterless  Hugh  had  shown  himself  of  old, 
how  devoid  of  all  desire  for  rehabilitation  his  present 
reputation  in  the  town  argued  him.  At  that  moment 
it  seemed  as  if  in  saving  Hugh  from  this  condemnation, 
he  was  pleading  for  himself  as  he  had  been — for  the 
further  chance  which  he,  but  for  circumstances,  perhaps, 
had  needed,  too.  His  mind,  working  swiftty,  told  him 
that  no  appeal  to  mere  sentiment  would  suffice — he 
must  touch  another  note.  As  he  paused,  his  eyes  wan 
dered  to  an  oil  portrait  on  the  wall,  and  suddenly  he 
saw  his  way. 

"You,"  he  said,  "have  lived  a  life  of  jusi  and  bal 
anced  action.  It  is  bred  in  the  bone.  Yo-u  hate  all 
loose  conduct,  and  rightly.  You  hate  it  most  in  Hugh 
for  the  simple  reason  that  he  is  your  son.  The  very 
relation  makes  it  more  impossible  to  countenance.  He 
should  be  like  you — of  temperate  and  prudent  habit. 

11 


SATAN"   SANDEBSON 

But  did  you  and  he  start  on  equal  terms  ?  Your  grand 
father  was  a  Standish;  your  ancestry  was  undiluted 
Puritan.  Did  Hugh  have  all  your  fund  of  resistance  ?" 

The  old  man's  gaze  for  the  first  time  left  Harry's 
face.  It  lifted  for  an  instant  to  the  portrait  at  which 
Harry  had  glanced — a  picture  of  Hugh's  dark  gipsy- 
like  mother,  painted  in  the  month  of  her  marriage,  and 
the  year  of  her  death — and  in  that  instant  the  stern 
lines  about  the  mouth  relaxed  a  little.  Harry  had  laid 
his  finger  on  the  deepest  cord  of  feeling  in  the  old 
man's  gruff  nature.  The  glow  that  had  smoldered  in 
the  cavernous  eyes  faded  and  a  troubled  cloud  came  to 
belie  their  former  wrath. 

"'As  a  man  sows/  you  say,  and  you  deny  him  an 
other  seeding  and  it  may  be  a  better  harvest.  You  shut 
the  door; — and  if  you  shut  it,  it  may  not  swing  open 
again !  With  me  it  was  the  turning  of  a  long  lane. 
Hugh  perhaps  has  not  turned — yet."  A  breath  of  that 
past  life  had  swept  anew  over  Harry,  the  old  shudder 
ing  recoil  again  had  rushed  upon  him.  It  gave  his 
voice  a  curious  energy  as  he  ended:  "And  I  have  seen 
how  far  a  man  may  go  and  yet — come  back  !v 

There  was  a  pause.  The  judge  had  an  inspiration. 
He  folded  the  parchment,  and  rose. 

"Perhaps  it  would  be  as  well,"  he  said  in  a  matter- 


AS   A   MAN    SOWS 

of-fact  way,  "if  the  signing  be  left  open  for  the  present. 
Last  testaments,  whatever  their  provisions,  are  more  or 
less  serious  matters,  and  in  your  case," — he  nodded 
toward  the  occupant  of  the  chair — "there  is  not  the 
element  of  necessitous  haste.  Of  course,"  he  added 
tentatively,  "I  am  at  your  service  at  any  time." 

He  rose  as  he  spoke,  and  laid  the  document  on  the 
table. 

Eor  a  moment  David  Stires  sat  in  silence.  Then  he 
said,  with  a  glint  of  the  old  ironic  fire:  "You  should 
have  been  a  special  pleader,  Sanderson.  There's  no 
client  too  bad  for  them  to  make  out  a  case  for !  Well 
.  .  .  well  ...  we  won't  sign  to-night.  I  will  read 
it  over  again  when  I  am  more  equal  to  it." 

His  visitors  made  their  adieux,  and  as  the  door 
closed  upon  them,  the  girl  came  to  the  wheel-chair  and 
wistfully  drew  the  parchment  from  his  hands. 

"You're  a  good  girl,  Jessica,"  he  said,  "too  good  to  a 
rascal  you've  never  known.  But  there — go  to  your 
room,  child.  I  can  ring  for  Blake  when  I  want  any 
thing." 

For  long  the  old  man  sat  alone,  musing  in  his  chair, 
his  eyes  on  the  painted  portrait  on  the  wall.  The  image 
there  was  just  as  young  and  fair  and  joyous  as  though 
yesterday  she  had  stood  in  bridal  white  beside  him, 

13 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

instead  of  so  long  ago — so  long  ago!  His  lips  moved. 
"In  return  for  the  care  and  sorrow,"  he  muttered,  "all 
the  days  of  his  life!" 

At  length  he  sighed  and  took  up  a  magazine.  He  was 
thinking  of  Harry  Sanderson. 

"How  like  I"  he  said  aloud.  "So  Sanderson  sowed 
his  wild  oats,  too!  .  .  .  When  he  stood  there,  with 
the  light  on  his  face — when  he  talked — I — I  could 
almost  have  thought  it  was  Hugh !" 


14 


CHAPTER  II 

DOCTOR   MOEEAU 

Harry  Sanderson  and  the  judge  parted  at  the  gate, 
and  Harry  walked  slowly  home  in  the  moonlight. 

The  youthful  follies  that  he  had  resurrected  when  he 
had  called  himself  his  old  nickname  of  "Satan  Sander 
son"  he  had  left  so  far  behind  him,  had  buried  so  deep, 
that  the  ironic  turn  of  circumstance  that  had  dragged 
them  into  view,  sorry  skeletons,  seemed  intrusive  and 
malicious.  Not  that  he  was  desirous  of  sailing  under 
false  colors;  he  had  brought  into  his  new  career  more 
than  a  soupqon  of  the  old  indifference  to  popular  esti 
mation,,  the  old  propensity  to  go  his  own  way  and  to 
care  very  little  what  others  thought  of  him.  The  sting 
was  a  nearer  one ;  it  was  his  own  present  of  fair  exam 
ple  and  good  repute  that  recoiled  with  a  fastidious 
sense  of  abasement  from  the  recollection. 

As  he  stood  in  the  library,  his  hand  on  the  mantel 
piece,  he  had  been  painfully  conscious  of  detail.  He 
remembered  vividly  the  half  amused  smile  of  the  law 
yer,  the  silent,  listening  attitude  of  the  girl  crouched 

15 


SATAi;"   SANDERSON 

by  the  wheel-chair.  He  had  seen  Jessica  Holme  scarcely 
a  half-dozen  times,  then  only  at  service,  or  driving  be 
hind  the  Stires  bays.  That  moment  when  she  had 
thrown  herself  beside  the  old  man's  chair  to  plead  for 
the  son  she  had  never  seen — an  instant  revelation 
wrought  by  the  strenuous  agitation  of  the  moment — 
had  been  illuminative;  it  had  given  him  a  lightning- 
like  glimpse  into  the  unplummeted  deeps  of  womanly 
unselfishness  and  sympathy.  He  flushed  suddenly.  He 
had  not  realized  that  she  was  so  beautiful. 

What  a  tragedy  to  be  blind,  for  a  woman  with  tem 
perament,  talent  and  heart!  To  be  sightless  to  the 
beauty  of  such  a  perfect  night,  with  that  silver  bridge  of 
stars,  those  far  hills  rising  like  purple  tulips — an  allur 
ing  night  for  those  AV!IO  saw !  The  picture  she  had  made, 
kneeling  with  the  lamplight  rosying  in  her  hair,  hung 
before  ]iim.  The  flower-scent  with  which  the  room  had 
been  full  was  in  his  nostrils,  and  verses  flashed  into  his 
mind: 

And  I  swear,  as  I  thought  of  her  thus,  in  that  hour, 
And  of  how,  after  all,  old  things  were  best, 

That  I  smelt  the  smell  of  that  jasmin-flower 
"Which  she  used  to  wear  in  her  breast. 

Under  his  thought  the  lines  repeated  themselves  in  a. 
mystical  monotone. 

16 


DOCTOE   MOREAU 

He  had  saved  an  old  college-mate  from  possible  dis 
inheritance  and  the  grind  of  poverty,  for  David  Stires' 
health  was  precarious.  He  thought  of  this  with  a  tinge 
of  satisfaction.  The  least  of  that  peculiar  clan,  one  who 
had  held  his  place,  not  by  likable  qualities  but  by  a  ver 
satile  talent  for  entertainment,  Hugh  Stires  yet  deserved 
thus  much.  Harry  Sanderson  had  never  shirked  an 
obligation.  "As  a  man  sows" — the  old  man's  words  re 
curred  to  him.  Did  any  man  reap  what  he  sowed,  after 
all?  Was  he,  the  "Satan  Sanderson"  that  was,  getting 
his  deserts? 

"If  there  is  a  Providence  that  parcels  out  our  earthly 
rewards  and  penalties,"  he  said  to  himself,  "it  has 
missed  me !  If  there  is  any  virtue  in  example,  I  ought 
to  be  the  black  sheep.  Hugh  never  influenced  anybody ; 
he  was  a  natural  camp-follower.  I  was  in  the  van.  All 
I  said  was  a  sneer,  all  I  did  a  challenge  to  respectability. 
Yet  here  I  am,  a  shepherd  of  the  faithful,  a  brother  of 
Aaron !" 

Harry  stepped  more  briskly  along  the  gas-lighted 
square,  nodding  now  and  then  to  an  acquaintance,  and 
bowing  on  a  crossing  to  a  carriage  that  bowled  by  with 
the  wife  of  the  Very  Reverend,  the  Bishop  of  the  Dio 
cese.  As  he  passed  a  darkened  entrance,  a  door  with  a 
small  barred  window  in  its  upper  panel  opened,  and  a 

17 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

man  came  into  the  street — a  man  light  and  fair  with 
watery  blue  eyes  and  a  drooping,  blond  mustache.  He 
lifted  his  silk  hat  with  a  faded,  Chesterfieldian  grace  as 
he  came  down  the  steps  with  outstretched  hand. 

"My  dear  Sanderson  I"  he  said  effusively.  "In  the  in 
terest  of  sweetness  and  light,  where  did  you  stumble  on 
your  new  chauffeur  ?  His  style  is  the  admiration  of  the 
town.  Next  to  having  your  gift  of  eloquence,  I  can 
think  of  nothing  so  splendid  as  possessing  such  a  ton- 
neau  !  The  city  is  in  your  debt ;  you  have  shown  it  that 
even  a  cleric  can  be  'fast'  without  reproach  !" 

Harry  Sanderson  saw  the  weak  features  and  ingra 
tiating  smile,  the  clayey,  dry-lined  skin  and  restless  eyes, 
but  he  did  not  seem  to  see  the  extended  hand.  He  did 
not  smile  at  the  badinage  as  he  replied  evenly : 

"My  chauffeur,  Doctor,  is  a  Finn ;  and  his  style  is  his 
own.  I  see,  however,  that  I  must  decrease  his  speed- 
limit." 

Doctor  Moreau  stood  a  moment  looking  after  him,  his 
womanish  hands  clenching  and  his  cynical  glance  full 
of  an  evil  light. 

"The  university  prig!"  he  said  under  his  breath. 
"Doesn't  he  take  himself  for  the  whole  thing,  with  his 
money  and  his  buttonhole  bouquet,  and  his  smug  self- 
righteousness !  He  thinks  I'm  hardly  fit  to  speak  to 

18 


DOCTOE   MOREAU 

since  I've  had  to  quit  the  hospital !    I'd  like  to  take  him 
down  a  peg  I" 

He  watched  the  alert,  ministerial  figure  till  it  rounded 
the  corner.  He  looked  up  and  down  the  street,  hesitat 
ing;  then,  shrugging  his  shoulders,  he  turned  and  reen- 
tered  the  door  with  the  narrow  barred  window. 


19 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  COMING  OF  A  PRODIGAL 

The  later  night  was  very  still  and  the  moon,  lifting 
like  a  paper  lantern  over  the  aspen  tops,  silvered  all  the 
landscape.  In  its  placid  radiance  the  white  house  loomed 
in  a  ghostly  pallor.  The  windows  of  one  side  were 
blank,  but  behind  the  library  shade  the  bulbous  lamp 
still  drowsed  like  a  monster  glow-worm.  From  the 
shadowy  side  of  the  building  stretched  a  narrow  L,  its 
front  covered  by  a  rose-trellis,  whose  pale  blossoms  in 
the  soft  night  air  mingled  their  delicate  fragrance  with 
that  of  the  jasmin. 

Save  for  the  one  bright  pane,  there  seemed  now  no 
life  or  movement  in  the  house.  But  outside,  in  the 
moonlight,  a  lurching,  shabbily-clothed  figure  moved, 
making  his  uncertain  way  with  the  deliberation  of 
composed  inebriety.  The  sash  of  the  window  was  raised 
a  few  inches  and  he  nodded  sagely  at  the  yellow  shade. 

"Gay  old  silver-top  I"  he  hiccoughed ;  "see  you  in  the 
morning !" 

He  capsized  against  an  althea  bush  and  shook  his 
20 


THE    COMING    OF   A    PEODIGAL 

head  with  owlish  gravity  as  he  disentangled  himself. 
Then  he  staggered  serenely  to  the  rose-trellis,  and,  choos 
ing  its  angle  with  an  assurance  that  betrayed  ancient 
practice,  climbed  to  the  upper  window,  shot  its  bolt  with 
a  knife,  and  let  himself  in.  He  painstakingly  closed 
both  windows  and  inner  blinds,  before  he  turned  on  an 
electric  light. 

In  the  room  in  which  he  now  stood  he  had  stored  his 
boyish  treasures  and  shirked  his  maturer  tasks.  It 
should  have  had  deeper  human  associations,  too,  for  once, 
before  the  house  had  been  enlarged  to  its  present  propor 
tions,  that  chamber  had  been  his  mother's.  The  Mareclial 
Niel  rose  that  clambered  to  the  window-sill  had  been 
planted  by  her  hand.  In  that  room  he  had  been  born. 
And  in  it  had  occurred  that  sharp,  corrosive  quarrel 
with  his  father  on  the  night  he  had  flung  himself  from 
the  house  vowing  never  to  return. 

As  Hugh  Stires  stood  looking  about  him,  it  seemed 
for  an  instant  to  his  clouded  senses  that  the  past  six 
months  of  wandering  and  unsavory  adventure  were  a 
dream.  There  was  his  bed,  with  its  clean  linen  sheets 
and  soft  pillows.  How  he  would  like  to  lie  down  just 
as  he  was  and  sleep  a  full  round  of  the  clock !  Last  night 
he  had  slept — where  had  he  slept?  He  had  forgotten 
for  the  moment.  He  looked  longingly  at  the  spotless 

21 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

coverlid.  No ;  some  one  might  appear,  and  it  would  not 
do  to  be  seen  in  his  present  condition.  It  was  scarcely 
ten.  Time  enough  for  that  afterward. 

He  drew  out  the  drawer  of  a  chiffonier,  opened  a 
closet  and  gloated  over  the  order  and  plenty  of  their 
contents.  He  made  difficult  selection  from  these,  and, 
steadying  his  progress  by  wall  and  chair,  opened  the  door 
of  an  adjoining  bath-room.  It  contained  a  circular  bath 
with  a  needle  shower.  Without  removing  his  clothing, 
he  climbed  into  this,  balancing  himself  with  an  effort, 
found  and  turned  the  cold  faucet,  and  let  the  icy  water, 
chilled  from  artesian  depths,  trickle  over  him  in  a  hun 
dred  stinging  needle-points. 

It  was  a  very  different  figure  that  reentered  the  larger 
room  a  half-hour  later,  from  the  slinking  mud-lark  that 
had  climbed  the  rose-trellis.  The  old  Hugh  lay,  a  heap 
of  soiled  and  sodden  garments;  the  new  stood  forth 
shaven,  fragrant  with  fresh  linen  and  clean  and  fit  ap 
parel.  The  maudlin  had  vanished,  the  gaze  was  unvexed 
and  bright,  the  whole  man  seemed  to  have  settled  into 
himself,  to  have  grown  trim,  nonchalant,  debonair.  He 
held  up  his  hand,  palm  outward,  between  the  electric 
globe  and  his  eye — there  was  not  a  tremor  of  nerve  or 
muscle.  He  smiled.  No  headache,  no  fever,  no  uncer- 

22 


THE    COMING    OF    A    PRODIGAL 

tain  feet  or  trembling  hands  or  swollen  tongue,  after 
more  than  a  week  of  deep  potations.  He  could  still 
"sober-up"  as  he  used  to  do  (with  Blake  the  butler  to 
help  him)  when  it  had  been  a  mere  matter  of  an  even 
ing's  tipsiness !  And  how  fine  it  felt  to  be  decently 
clad  again ! 

He  crossed  to  a  cheval-glass.  The  dark  handsome 
face  that  looked  out  at  him  was  clean-cut  and  aristo 
cratic,  perfect  save  for  one  blemish — a  pale  line  that 
slanted  across  the  right  brow,  a  birth-mark,  resembling 
a  scar.  All  his  life  this  mark  had  been  an  eyesore  to  its 
owner.  It  had  a  trick  of  turning  an  evil  red  under  the 
stress  of  anger  or  emotion. 

On  the  features,  young  and  vigorous  as  they  were, 
subtle  lines  of  self-indulgence  had  already  set  them 
selves,  and  beneath  their  expression,  cavalier  and  caress 
ing,  lay  the  unmistakable  stigmata  of  inherited  weak 
ness.  But  these  the  gazer  did  not  see.  He  regarded 
himself  with  egotistic  complacency.  Here  he  was,  just 
as  sound  as  ever.  He  had  had  his  fling,  and  taught  "the 
Governor"  that  he  could  get  along  well  enough  without 
any  paternal  help  if  he  chose.  Needs  must  when  the 
devil  drives,  but  his  father  should  never  guess  the  coarse 
and  desperate  expediences  that  had  sickened  him  of  his 
bargain,  or  the  stringent  calculation  of  his  return.  He 

23 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

was  no  milksop,  either,  to  come  sneaking  to  him  with 
his  hat  in  his  hand.  When  he  saw  him  now,  he  would 
be  dressed  as  the  gentleman  he  was ! 

He  attentively  surveyed  the  room.  It  was  clean  and 
dusted — evidently  it  had  been  carefully  tended.  He 
might  have  stepped  out  of  it  yesterday.  There  in  a 
corner  was  his  banjo.  On  the  edge  of  a  silver  tray  was 
a  half-consumed  cigar.  It  crumbled  between  his  fin 
gers.  He  had  been  smoking  that  cigar  when  his  father 
had  entered  the  room  on  that  last  night.  There,  too, 
was  the  deck  of  cards  he  had  angrily  flung  on  to  the 
table  when  he  left.  Not  a  thing  had  been  disturbed — 
yes,  one  thing.  His  portrait,  that  had  hung  over  his 
bed,  was  not  in  its  place.  A  momentary  sense  of  trepi 
dation  rushed  through  him.  Could  his  father  really 
have  meant  all  he  had  said  in  his  rage  ?  Did  he  really 
mean  to  disown  him  ? 

For  an  instant  he  faced  the  hall  door  with  clenched 
hands.  Somewhere  in  the  house,  unconscious  of  his 
presence,  was  that  ward  of  whose  coming  he  had  learned. 
Moreau  was  a  good  friend  to  have  warned  him !  Was 
she  part  of  a  plan  of  reprisal — her  presence  there  a 
tentative  threat  to  him?  Could  his  father  mean  to 
adopt  her  ?  Might  that  great  house,  those  grounds,  the 
bulk  of  his  wealth,  go  to  her,  and  he,  the  son,  be  left  in 

24 


THE    COMING   OF   A   PRODIGAL 

the  cold?  He  shivered.  Perhaps  he  had  stayed  away 
too  long! 

As  he  turned  again,  he  heard  a  sound  in  the  hall.  He 
listened.  A  light  step  was  approaching — the  swish  of  a 
gown.  With  a  sudden  impulse  he  stepped  into  the 
embrasure  of  the  window,  as  the  figure  of  a  girl  paused 
at  the  door.  He  felt  his  face  flush ;  she  had  thrown  a 
crimson  kimono  over  her  white  night-gown,  and  the 
apparition  seemed  to  part  the  dusk  of  the  doorway  like 
the  red  breast  of  a  robin.  She  held  in  her  hands  a  bunch 
of  the  pale  Marechal  Niel  roses,  and  his  eye  caught  the 
long  rebellious  sweep  of  her  bronze  hair,  and  the  rosy 
tint  of  bare  feet  through  the  worsted  meshes  of  her 
night-slippers. 

To  his  wonder  the  sight  of  the  lighted  room  seemed 
to  cause  her  no  surprise.  For  an  instant  she  stood  still 
as  though  listening,  then  entered  and  placed  the  roses 
in  a  vase  on  a  reading-stand  by  the  bedside. 

Hugh  gasped.  To  reach  the  stand  the  girl  had  passed 
the  spot  where  he  stood,,  but  she  had  taken  no  note  of 
him.  Her  gaze  had  gone  by  him  as  if  he  had  been 
empty  air.  Then  he  realized  the  truth;  Jessica  Holme 
was  blind !  Moreau's  letter  had  given  him  no  inkling 
of  that.  So  this  was  the  girl  with  whom  his  father  now 
threatened  him !  Was  she  counting  on  his  not  coming 

25 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

back,  waiting  for  the  windfall?  She  was  blind — but 
she  was  beautiful !  Suppose  he  were  to  turn  the  tables 
on  the  old  man,  not  only  climb  back  into  his  good 
graces  through  her,  but  even — 

The  thin  line  on  his  brow  sprang  suddenly  scarlet. 
What  a  supple,  graceful  arm  she  had !  How  adroit  her 
fingers  as  they  arranged  the  rose-stems  !  Was  he  already 
wholly  blackened  in  her  opinion?  What  did  she  think 
of  him  ?  Why  did  she  bring  those  flowers  to  that  empty 
room?  Could  it  have  been  she  who  had  kept  it  clean 
and  fresh  and  unaltered  against  his  return?  A  confi 
dent,  daring  look  grew  in  his  eyes ;  he  wished  she  could 
see  him  in  that  purple  tie  and  velvet  smoking- jacket ! 
What  an  opportunity  for  a  romantic  self-justification ! 
Should  he  speak  ?  Suppose  it  should  frighten  her  ? 

Chance  answered  him.  His  respiration  had  conveyed 
to  her  the  knowledge  of  a  presence  in  the  room.  He 
heard  her  draw  a  quick  breath.  "Some  one  is  here !" 
she  whispered. 

He  started  forward.  "Wait !  wait !"  he  said  in  a  loud 
whisper,  as  she  sprang  back.  But  the  voice  seemed  to 
startle  her  the  more,  and  before  he  could  reach  her  side 
she  was  gone.  He  heard  her  flying  steps  descend  the 
stair,  and  the  opening  and  closing  of  a  door. 

The  sudden  flight  jarred  Hugh's  pleasurable  sense  of 
26 


THE    COMING    OF    A    PRODIGAL 

novelty.  He  thrust  his  hands  deep  into  his  pockets. 
Now  he  was  in  for  it!  She  would  alarm  the  house, 
rouse  the  servants — he  should  have  a  staring,  domestic 
audience  for  the  imminent  reconciliation  his  sobered 
sense  told  him  was  so  necessary.  Why  could  he  not 
slip  back  into  the  old  rut,  he  thought  sullenly,  without 
such  a  boring,  perfunctory  ceremony  ?  He  had  intended 
to  postpone  this,  if  possible,  until  a  night's  sleep  had 
fortified  him.  But  now  the  sooner  the  ordeal  was  over, 
the  better!  Shrugging  his  shoulders,  he  went  quickly 
down  the  stair  to  the  library. 

He  had  known  exactly  what  he  should  see  there — the 
vivid  girl  with  the  hue  of  fright  in  her  cheeks,  the 
shaded  lamp,  the  wheel-chair,  and  the  feeble  old  man 
with  his  furrowed  face  and  gray  mustaches.  What  he 
himself  should  say  he  had  not  had  time  to  reflect. 

The  figure  in  the  chair  looked  up  as  the  door  opened. 
"Hugh  !"  he  cried,  and  half  lifted  himself  from  his  seat. 
Then  he  settled  back,  and  the  sunken,  indomitable  eyes 
fastened  themselves  on  his  son's  face. 

Hugh  was  melodramatic — cheaply  so.  He  saw  the 
girl  start  at  the  name,  saw  her  hands  catch  at  the 
kimono  to  draw  its  folds  over  the  bare  white  throat, 
saw  the  rich  color  that  flooded  her  brow.  He  saw  him 
self  suddenly  the  moving  hero  of  the  stagery,  the 

27 


SATAN   SANDEBSON 

tractive  force  of  the  situation.  Real  tears  came  to  his 
eyes — tears  of  insincere  feeling,  clue  partly  to  the  cheap 
whisky  he  had  drunk  that  day,  whose  outward  conse 
quences  he  had  so  drastically  banished,  and  partly  to 
sheer  nervous  excitation. 

"Father!"  he  said,  and  came  and  caught  the  gaunt 
hand  that  shook  against  the  chair. 

Then  the  deeps  of  the  old  man's  heart  were  suddenly 
broken  up.  "My  son !"  he  cried,  and  threw  his  arms 
about  him.  "Hugh — my  boy,  my  boy !" 

Jessica  waited  to  hear  no  more.  Thrilling  with  glad 
ness,  and  flushing  with  the  sudden  recollection  of  her 
bare  throat  and  feet,  she  slipped  away  to  her  room  to 
creep  into  bed  and  lie  wide-eyed  and  thinking. 

What  did  he  look  like?  Of  his  face  she  had  never 
seen  even  a  counterfeit  presentment.  Through  what 
adventures  had  he  passed?  Now  that  he  had  come 
home,  forgiving  and  forgiven,  would  he  stay?  He  had 
been  in  his  room  when  she  entered  it  with  the  roses — 
must  have  guessed,  if  he  had  not  already  known,  that 
she  was  blind.  Would  he  guess  that  she  had  cared  for 
that  room,  had  placed  fresh  flowers  there  often  and 
often? 

Since  she  had  come  to  the  house  in  the  aspens  Jessica 
had  found  the  imagined  figure  of  Hugh  a  dominant 

28 


THE    COMING    OF    A    PRODIGAL 

presence  in  a  horizon  lightened  with  a  throng  of  new 
impressions.  The  direful  catastrophe  of  her  blindness 
— it  had  been  the  sudden  result  of  an  accident — had 
fallen  like  a  thunderbolt  upon  a  nature  elastic  and  joy 
ous.  It  had  brought  her  face  to  face  with  a  revelation 
of  mental  agony,  made  her  feel  herself  the  hapless 
martyr  of  that  curt  thing  called  Chance;  one  moment 
seeing  a  universe  unfolding  before  her  in  line  and  hue, 
the  next  feeling  it  thrust  rudely  behind  a  gruesome 
blank  of  darkness.  The  two  years  that  followed  had 
been  a  period  when  despair  had  covered  her;  when  spe 
cialists  had  peered  with  cunning  instruments  into  her 
darkened  eyes,  to  utter  hopeful  platitudes — and  to  coun 
sel  not  at  all.  Then  into  her  own  painful  self-absorp 
tion  had  intruded  her  father's  death,  and  the  very  hurt 
of  this,  perhaps,  had  been  a  salving  one.  It  had  of 
necessity  changed  her  whole  course  of  living.  In  her 
new  surroundings  she  had  taken  up  life  once  more. 
Her  alert  imagination  had  begun  to  stir,  to  turn  diffi 
dently  to  new  channels  of  exploration  and  interest.  She 
had  always  lived  largely  in  books  and  pictures,  and  her 
world  was  still  full  of  ideals  and  of  brave  adventures. 
Gratitude  had  made  her  love  the  morose  old  invalid 
with  his  crabbed  tempers ;  and  the  wandering  son,  choos 
ing  for  pride's  sake  a  resourceless  battle  with  the  world 

29 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

— the  very  mystery  of  his  whereabouts — had  taken 
strong  hold  of  her  imagination.  Of  the  quarrel  which 
had  preceded  Hugh's  departure,  she  had  made  her  own 
version.  That  he  should  have  come  hack  on  this  very 
night,  when  the  disinheritance  she  had  dreaded  had 
been  so  nearly  consummated,  seemed  now  to  have  an 
especial  and  an  appealing  significance. 

Presently  she  rose,  slipped  on  the  red  kimono,  and, 
taking  a  key  from  the  pocket  of  her  gown,  stole  from 
the  room.  She  ascended  a  stairway  and  unlocked  the 
door  of  a  wide,  bare  attic  where  the  moonlight  poured 
through  a  skylight  in  the  roof  upon  an  unfinished  statue. 
In  this  statue  she  had  begun  to  fashion,  in  the  imagined 
figure  of  Hugh,  her  conception  of  the  Prodigal  Son; 
not  the  battered  and  husk-filled  wayfarer  of  the  parable, 
but  a  figure  of  character  and  pathos,  erring  through 
youthful  pride  and  spirit.  The  unfinished  clay  no  eyes 
had  seen,  for  those  walls  bounded  her  especial  domain. 

Carefully,  one  by  one,  she  unwound  the  wet  cloths 
that  swathed  the  figure.  In  the  streaming  radiance  of 
the  night,  the  clay  looked  white  as  snow  and  she  a  crim 
son  ghost.  She  passed  her  fingers  lightly  over  the  fea 
tures.  Was  the  real  Hugh's  face  like  that?  One  day, 
perhaps,  her  own  eyes  would  tell  her,  and  she  would 
finish  it.  Then  she  might  show  it  to  him,  but  not  now. 

30 


THE    COMING    OF   A    PRODIGAL 

She  replaced  the  coverings,  relockecl  the  door,,  and 
went  softly  down  to  her  bed. 

When  Hugh  went  shamefacedly  up  the  stair  from  the 
library,  the  artificial  glow  that  had  tingled  to  his  finger 
tips  had  faded.  The  poise  of  mind,  the  certitude  of  all 
the  faculties  of  eye  and  hand  that  his  icy  bath  had  given 
him,  were  yielding.  The  penalties  he  had  dislodged 
were  returning  reinforced.  He  was  rapidly  becoming 
drunk. 

He  groped  his  way  to  his  room,  turned  out  the  light, 
threw  himself  fully  dressed  upon  the  bed,  and  slept  the 
deep  sleep  of  deferred  intoxication. 


31 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   LANE  THAT   HAD   NO    TURNING 

On  a  June  day  a  month  later,  Harry  Sanderson  sat 
in  his  study,  looking  out  of  the  window  across  the  dim 
summer  haze  of  heat,  negligently  smoking.  On  the  dis 
tant  hill  overlooking  the  town  was  the  cemetery,  flanked 
by  fields  of  growing  corn  where  sulky,  round-shouldered 
crows  quarrelled  and  pilfered.  He  could  see  the  long 
white  marl  road,  bending  in  a  broad  curve  between  clo 
ver-stippled  meadows,  to  skirt  the  willow-green  blutf 
above  the  river.  There,  miles  away,  on  the  high  bank, 
he  could  distinguish  the  railroad  bridge,  a  long  black 
skeleton  spanning  "the  hole,"  a  deep,  fish-haunted  pool, 
the  deepest  spot  in  the  river  for  fifty  miles.  From  the 
nearer,  elm-shaded  streets  came  the  muffled  clack  of 
trade  and  the  discordant  treble  of  a  huckster,  some 
where  a  trolley-bell  was  buzzing  angrily,  and  the  impu 
dent  scream  of  a  blue  jay  sheared  across  the  monotone. 
Harry's  gaze  went  past  the  streets — past  the  open  square, 
with  its  chapel  spire  lifting  from  a  beryl  sea  of  foliage 
— to  a  white  colonial  porch,  peering  from  between 
aspens  that  quivered  in  the  tremulous  sunlight. 

32 


THE  LANE  THAT  HAD  NO  TURNING 

The  dog  on  the  rug  rose,  stretching,  and  came  to 
thrust  an  eager  insinuating  muzzle  into  its  master's  lap. 
Rummy  whined,  the  stubby  tail  wagged,  but  his  master 
paid  no  heed,  and  with  dejected  ears,  he  slunk  out  into 
the  sunshine.  Harry  was  looking,  with  brows  gathered 
to  a  frown,  at  the  far-away  porch.  The  look  was  full  of 
a  troubled  question,  a  vague  misgiving,  an  interrogative 
anxiety.  He  was  thinking  of  a  night  when  he  had  saved 
the  son  of  that  house  from  the  calamity  of  disinherit 
ance — to  what  end  ? 

For  since  that  moonlighted  evening  of  the  will-mak 
ing  Harry  had  learned  that  the  long  lane  had  had  no 
true  turning  for  Hugh.  He  had  sifted  him  through  and 
through.  At  college  he  had  put  him  down  for  a  weak 
ling — unballasted,  misdemeanant.  Now  he  knew  him 
for  what  he  really  was — a  moral  mollusk,  a  scamp  in 
embryo,  a  decadent,  realizing  an  ugly  propensity  to  a 
deplorable  -finale.  A  consistent  career  of  loose  living 
had  carried  Hugh  far  since  those  college  days  when  he 
had  been  dubbed  "Satan's  Shadow."  While  to  Harry 
Sanderson  the  eccentric  and  agnostical  had  then  been, 
as  it  were,  the  mask  through  which  his  temperament 
looked  at  life,  to  Hugh  it  had  spelled  shipwreck.  Harry 
Sanderson  had  done  broadly  as  he  pleased.  He  had  en 
tertained  whom  he  listed;  had  gone  "slumming";  had 

33 


SATAN   SANDEBSOtf 

once  boxed  to  a  finish,  for  a  wager,  a  local  pugilist  whose 
acquaintance  he  affected,  known  as  "Gentleman  Jim." 
He  had  been  both  the  hardest  hitter  and  the  hardest 
drinker  in  his  class,  yet  withal  its  most  brilliant  student. 
Native  character  had  enabled  him  to  persist,  as  the  ex 
asperating  function  of  success  which  dissipation  declined 
to  eliminate.  But  the  same  natural  gravitation  which 
in  spite  of  all  aberration  had  given  Harry  Sanderson 
classical  honors,  had  brought  Hugh  Stires  to  the  immi 
nent  brink  of  expulsion.  And  since  that  time,  without 
the  character  which  belonged  to  Harry  as  a  possession, 
Hugh  had  continued  to  drift  aimlessly  on  down  the 
broad  lax  way  of  profligacy. 

The  conditions  he  found  upon  his  return,  however, 
had  opened  Hugh's  eyes  to  the  perilous  strait  in  which 
he  stood.  He  was  a  materialist,  and  the  taste  he  had  had 
of  deprivation  had  sickened  him.  In  the  first  revulsion, 
when  the  contrast  between  recent  famine  and  present 
plenty  was  strong  upon  him,  he  had  been  at  anxious 
pains  to  make  himself  secure  with  his  father — and  with 
Jessica  Holme.  Harry's  mental  sight — keen  as  the  hunt 
er's  sight  on  the  rifle-barrel — was  sharpened  by  his 
knowledge  of  the  old  Hugh,  an  intuitive  knowledge 
gained  in  a  significant  formative  period.  He  saw  more 
clearly  than  the  townfolk  who-,  in  a  general  way,  had 

34 


THE  LANE  THAT  HAD  NO  TURNING 

known  Hugh  Stires  all  their  lives.  Week  by  week  Harry 
had  seen  him  regain  lost  ground  in  his  father's  esteem ; 
day  by  day  he  had  seen  him  making  studious  appeal  to 
all  that  was  romantic  in  Jessica,  climbing  to  the  favor  of 
each  on  the  ladder  of  the  other's  regard.  Hugh  was  nat 
urally  a  poseur,  with  a  keen  sense  of  effect.  He  could  be 
brilliant  at  will,  could  play  a  little  on  piano,  banjo  and 
violin,  could  sing  a  little,  and  had  himself  well  in  hand. 
And  feeling  the  unconscious  cord  of  romance  vibrate  to 
his  touch,  he  had  played  upon  it  with  no  unskilful 
fingers. 

Jessica  was  comparatively  free  from  that  coquetry  by 
means  of  which  a  woman's  instinct  experiments  in  emo 
tion.  Although  she  had  been  artist  enough  before  the 
cloistered  years  of  her  blindness  to  know  that  she  was 
comely,  she  had  never  employed  that  beauty  in  the  ordi 
nary  blandishments  of  girlish  fascination.  But  steadily 
and  unconsciously  she  had  turned  in  her  darkness  more 
and  more  to  the  bright  and  tender  air  with  which  Hugh 
clothed  all  their  intercourse.  Her  blindness  had  been  of 
too  short  duration  to  have  developed  that  fine  sense-per 
ception  with  which  nature  seeks  to  supplement  the  dark 
ened  vision.  The  ineradicable  marks  which  ill-governed 
living  had  set  in  Hugh's  face — the  self-indulgence  and 
egotism — she  could  not  see.  She  mistook  impulse  for  in- 

35 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

stinct.  She  read  him  by  the  untrustworthy  light  of  a 
colorful  imagination.  She  deemed  him  high-spirited  and 
debonair,  a  Prince  Charming,  whose  prideful  rebellion 
had  been  atoned  for  by  a  touching  and  manly  surrender. 

All  this  Harry  had  watched  with  a  painful  sense  of 
impotence,  and  this  feeling  was  upon  him  to-day  as  he 
stared  out  from  the  study  toward  the  white  porch,  glis 
tening  in  the  sun. 

At  length,  with  a  little  gesture  expressive  at  once  of 
helplessness  and  puzzle,  he  turned  from  the  window, 
took  his  violin  and  began  to  play.  He  began  a  barcarole, 
but  the  music  wandered  away,  through  insensible  varia 
tions,  into  a  moving  minor,  a  composition  of  his  own. 

It  broke  off  suddenly  at  a  dog's  fierce  snarl  from  tho 
yard,  and  the  rattle  of  a  thrown  pebble.  Immediately  a 
knock  came  at  the  door,  and  a  man  entered. 

"Don't  stop/'  said  the  new-comer.  "I've  dropped  in 
for  only  a  minute !  That's  an  ill-tempered  little  brute 
of  yours !  If  I  were  you,  I'd  get  rid  of  him." 

Harry  Sanderson  laid  the  violin  carefully  in  its  case 
and  shut  the  lid  before  he  answered.  "Eummy  is  impul 
sive,"  he  said  dryly.  "How  is  your  father  to-day, 
Hugh?" 

The  other  tapped  the  toe  of  his  shining  patent-leather 
with  his  cane  as  he  said  with  a  look  of  ill-humor: 


/  THE  LANE  THAT  HAD  NO  TURNING 

"About  as  well  as  usual.  He's  planning  now  to  put 
me  in  business,  and  expects  me  to  become  a  staid  pillar 
of  society — 'like  Sanderson/  as  he  says  forty  times  a 
week.  How  do  you  do  it,  Harry  ?  There  isn't  an  old  lady 
in  town  who  thinks  her  parlor  carpet  half  good  enough 
for  you  to  walk  on !  You're  only  a  month  older  than  I 
am,  yet  you  can  wind  the  whole  vestry,  and  the  bishop  to 
boot,  around  your  finger !" 

"I  wasn't  aware  of  the  idolatry."  Harry  laughed  a 
little — a  distant  laugh.  "You  are  observant,  Hugh." 

"Oh,  anybody  can  see  it.  I'd  like  to  know  how  you 
do  it.  It  was  always  so  with  you,  even  at  college.  You 
could  do  pretty  much  as  you  liked,  and  yet  be  popular, 
too.  Why,  there  was  never  a  jamboree  complete  without 
you  and  your  violin  at  the  head  of  the  table." 

"That  is  a  long  time  ago,"  said  Harry. 

"More  than  four  years.  Four  years  and  a  month  to 
morrow,  since  that  last  evening  of  college.  Yet  I  imag 
ine  it  will  be  longer  before  we  forget  it !  I  think  of  it 
still,  sometimes,  in  the  night — "  Hugh  went  on  more 
slowly, — "that  last  dinner  of  The  Saints,  and  poor 
Archie  singing  with  that  wobbly  smilax  wreath  over  one 
eye  and  the  claret  spilled  down  his  shirt-front — then 
the  sudden  silence  like  a  wet  blanket!  I  can  see  him 
yet,  when  his  head  dropped.  He  seemed  to  shrivel  right 

37 


SATAN   SANPBBSON 

up  in  his  chair.  How  horrible  to  die  like  that !  I  didn't 
touch  a  drink  for  a  month  afterward!"  He  shivered 
slightly,  and  walked  to  the  window. 

Harry  did  not  speak.  The  words  had  torn  the  net 
work  of  the  past  as  sheet-lightning  tears  the  summer 
dusk;  had  called  up  a  ghost  that  he  had  labored  hard 
to  lay — a  memory-specter  of  a  select  coterie  whose  wild 
days  and  nights  had  once  revolved  about  him  as  its 
central  sun.  The  sharp  tragedy  of  that  long-ago  even 
ing  had  been  the  awakening.  The  swift,  appalling 
catastrophe  had  crashed  into  his  career  at  the  pivotal 
moment.  It  had  shocked  him  from  his  orbit  and  set 
him  to  the  right-about-face.  And  the  moral  loulevcrse- 
tnent  had  carried  him,  in  abrupt  recoil,  into  the  min 
istry. 

An  odd  confusion  blurred  his  vision.  Perhaps  to 
cover  this,  he  crossed  the  room  to  a  small  private  safe 
which  stood  open  in  the  corner,  in  which  he  kept  his 
tithes  and  his  charities.  When  Hugh,  shrugging  his 
shoulders  as  if  to  dismiss  the  unwelcome  picture  he  had 
painted,  turned  again,  Harry  was  putting  into  it  some 
papers  from  his  pocket.  Hugh  saw  the  action ;  his  eyes 
fastened  on  the  safe  avidly. 

"I  say,"  he  said  after  a  moment's  pause,  as  Harry 
made  to  shut  its  door,  "can  you  loan  me  another  fifty  ? 

38 


THE  LANE  THAT  HAD  NO  TUKNING 

I'm  flat  on  my  uppers  again,  and  the  old  man  lias  been 
tight  as  nails  with  me  since  I  came  back.  I'm  sure  to 
be  able  to  return  it  with  the  rest,  in  a,  week  or  two." 

Harry  stretched  his  hand  again  toward  the  safe — 
then  drew  it  back  with  compressed  lips.  He  had  met 
Hugh  with  persistent  courtesy,,  and  the  other  had  found 
him  sufficiently  obliging  with  loans.  Of  late,  however, 
his  nerves  had  been  on  edge.  The  patent  calculation  of 
Hugh's  course  had  sickened,  and  his  flippant  cynicism 
had  jarred  and  disconcerted  him.  A  growing  sense  of 
security,  too,  had  made  Hugh  less  circumspect.  More 
than  once  during  the  past  month  Harry  had  seen  him 
issue  from  the  shadowed  door  whose  upper  panel  held 
the  little  barred  window — the  door  at  which  Doctor 
Moreau  had  entrance,  though  decent  doors  were  closed 
in  his  face. 

Hugh's  lowered  gaze  saw  the  arrested  movement  and 
his  cheek  flushed. 

"Oh,  if  it's  inconvenient,  I  won't  trouble  you  for  the 
accommodation,"  he  said.  "I  dare  say  I  can  raise  it." 

The  attempt  at  nonchalance  cost  him  a  palpable 
effort.  Comparatively  small  as  the  amount  was,  he 
needed  it.  He  was  in  sore  straits.  By  hook  or  crook 
he  must  stave  off  an  evil  day  whose  approach  he  knew 
not  how  to  meet. 

39 


SATAN    SANDERSON" 

"It  isn't  that  it  is  inconvenient,  Hugh/'  said  Harry. 
"It's  that  I  can't  approve  your  manner  of  living  lately, 
and — I  don't  know  where  the  fifty  is  going." 

The  mark  on  Hugh's  brow  reddened.  "I  wasn't  aware 
that  I  was  expected  to  render  you  an  accounting,"  he 
said  sulkily,  "if  I  do  borrow  a  dollar  or  two  now  and 
then!  What  if  I  play  cards,  and  drink  a  little  when 
I'm  dry  ?  I've  got  to  have  a  bit  of  amusement  once  in 
a  while  between  prayers.  You  liked  it  yourself  well 
enough,  before  you  discovered  a  sudden  talent  for 
preaching !" 

"Some  men  hide  their  talents  under  a  napkin,"  said 
Harry.  "You  drown  yours — in  a  bottle.  You  have 
been  steadily  going  downhill.  You  are  deceiving  your 
father — and  others — with  a  pretended  reform  which 
isn't  skin-deep !  You  have  made  them  believe  you  are 
living  straight,  when  you  are  carousing;  that  you  keep 
respectable  company,  when  you  have  taken  up  with  a 
besotted  and  discredited  gambler!" 

"I  suppose  you  mean  Doctor  Moreau,"  returned 
Hugh.  "There  are  plenty  of  people  in  town  who  are 
worse  than  he  is." 

"He  is  a  quack — dropped  from  the  hospital  staff  for 
addiction  to  drugs,  and  expelled  from  his  club  for  cheat 
ing  at  cards." 

40 


THE  LANE  THAT  HAD  NO  TURNING 

"He's  down  and  out/'  said  Hugh  sullenly,  "and  any 
cur  can  bite  him.  He  never  cheated  me,  and  I  find  him 
better  company  than  your  sanctimonious,  psalm-singing 
sort.  I'm  not  going  to  give  him  the  cold  shoulder  be 
cause  everybody  else  does.  I  never  went  back  on  a 
friend  yet.  I'm  not  that  sort !" 

A  steely  look  had  come  to  Harry  Sanderson's  eyes; 
he  was  thinking  of  the  house  in  the  aspens.  While  he 
talked,  shooting  pictures  had  been  flashing  through  his 
mind.  Now,  at  the  boast  of  this  eager  protester  of  loy 
alty,  this  recreant  who  "never  went  back  on  a  friend," 
his  face  set  like  a  flint. 

"You  never  had  a  friend,  Hugh,"  he  said  steadily. 
"You  never  really  loved  anybody  or  anything  but  your 
self.  You  are  utterly  selfish.  You  are  deliberately 
lying,  every  hour  you  live,  to  those  who  love  you.  You 
are  playing  a  part — for  your  own  ends !  You  were  only 
a  good  imitation  of  a  good  fellow  at  college.  You  are  a 
poor  imitation  of  a  man  of  honor  now." 

Hugh  rose  to  his  feet,  as  he  answered  hotly:  "And 
what  are  you,  I'd  like  to  know?  Just  because  I  take 
my  pleasure  as  I  please,  while  you  choose  to  make  a 
stained-glass  cherub  of  yourself,  is  no  reason  why  I'm 
not  just  as  good  as  you !  I  knew  you  well  enough  before 
you  set  up  for  such  a  pattern.  You  didn't  go  in  mucli 

41 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

then  for  a  theological  diet.  Pshaw !"  he  went  on,  snap 
ping  his  fingers  toward  the  well-stocked  book-shelves. 
"I  wonder  how  much  of  all  that  you  really  believe !" 

Harry  passed  the  insolence  of  the  remark.  He  flecked 
a  bit  of  dust  from  his  sleeve  before  he  answered,  smiling 
a  little  disdainfully: 

"And  how  much  do  you  believe,  Hugh  ?" 

"I  believe  in  running  my  own  affairs,  and  letting 
other  people  run  theirs !  I  don't  believe  in  talking 
cant,  and  posing  as  a  little-tin-god-on-wheels !  If  I 
lived  in  a  glass-house,  I'd  be  precious  careful  not  to 
throw  stones!" 

Harry  Sanderson  was  staring  at  him  curiously  now — 
a  stare  of  singular  inquiry.  This  shallow  witness  of 
his  youthful  misconduct,  then,  judged  him  by  himself; 
deemed  him  a  mere  masquerader  in  the  domino  of  de 
corous  life,  carrying  the  reckless  and  vicious  humors  of 
his  nonage  into  the  wider  issues  of  living,  and  clothing 
an  arrant  hypocrisy  under  the  habit  of  one  of  God's 
ministers ! 

The  elastic  weight  of  air  in  the  study  seemed  sud 
denly  grown  suffocating.  He  reached  and  flung  open 
the  chapel  door,  and  stood  looking  across  the  choir, 
through  the  mellow  light  of  the  duskily  tinted  nave, 
solemn  as  with  the  hush  of  past  prayer.  On  this  intc- 

42 


THE  LANE  THAT  HAD  NO  TURNING 

rior  had  been  lavished  the  special  love  of  the  invalid, 
who  had  given  of  his  riches  that  this  place  for  the  com 
fort  of  souls  might  be.  It  was  an  expanse  of  dim  colors 
and  dark  woodwork.  At  its  eastern  end  was  the  high 
altar,  with  tall  flowers  in  stately  gilt  vases  on  either 
side,  and  a  brass  lectern  glimmered  near-by.  In  the 
western  wall  was  set  a  great  rose-window  of  rich  stained 
glass — a  picture  of  the  eternal  tragedy  of  Calvary.  As 
Harry  stood  gazing  into  the  mellow  light,  Hugh  paced 
moodily  up  and  down  behind  him.  Suddenly  he  caught 
Harry's  arm  and  pointed. 

Harry  turned  and  looked. 

Above  the  mantel  was  set  a  mirror,  and  from  where 
they  stood,  this  reflected  Hugh's  face.  It  startled 
Harry,  for  some  trick  of  the  atmosphere,  or  the  sunlight 
falling  through  the  painted  glass,  lightening  the  sallow 
face  and  leaving  the  hair  in  deeper  shade — as  a 
cunning  painter  by  a  single  line  will  alter  a  whole 
physiognomy — had  for  the  instant  wiped  out  all  super 
ficial  unresemblance  and  left  a  weird  likeness.  As 
Hugh's  mocking  countenance  looked  from  the  oval 
frame,  Harry  had  a  queer  sensation  as  if  he  were  look 
ing  at  his  own  face,  with  some  indefinable  smear  of 
attaint  upon  it — the  trail  of  evil.  As  he  drew  away 
from  the  other's  touch,  his  eye  followed  the  bar  of 

43 


SATAN   SANBEBSON 

amber  light  to  the  rose-window  in  the  chapel ;  it  was 
falling  through  the  face  of  the  unrepentant  thief. 

The  movement  broke  the  spell.  When  he  looked 
again  the  eerie  impression  of  identity  was  gone. 

Hugh  had  felt  the  recoil.  "Not  complimented,  eh?" 
he  said  with  a  half-sneer.  "Too  bad  the  prodigal  should 
resemble  Satan  Sanderson,  the  fashionable  parish  rector 
who  waves  his  arms  so  gracefully  in  the  pulpit,  and 
preaches  such  nice  little  sermons !  You  didn't  mind  it 
so  much  in  the  old  days !  Pardon  me,"  he  added  with 
malice,  "I  forgot.  It's  the  'Reverend  Henry'  at  present, 
of  course !  I  imagine  your  friends  don't  call  you  'Satan' 
now." 

"No,"  returned  Harry  quietly.  "They  don't  call  me 
'Satan'  now !" 

He  went  back  to  the  safe. 

The  movement  set  Hugh  instantly  to  regretting  his 
hasty  tongue.  If  he  had  only  assumed  penitence,  in 
stead  of  flying  into  a  passion,  he  might  have  had  the 
money  he  wanted  just  as  well  as  not ! 

"There's  no  sense  in  us  two  quarrelling,"  he  said 
hastily.  "We've  been  friends  a  long  time.  I'm  sure  I 
didn't  intend  to  when  I  came  in.  I  suppose  you're 
right  about  some  things,  and  probably  dropping  Moreau 
wouldn't  hurt  me  any.  I'm  sorry  I  said  all  I  did. 

44 


THE  LANE  THAT  HAD  NO  TURNING 

Only — the  money  seemed  such  a  little  thing,  and  I — I 
needed  it." 

Harry  stood  an  instant  with  his  hand  on  the  knob, 
then  instead  'of  closing  the  door,  he  drew  out  a  little 
drawer.  He  lifted  a  packet  of  crisp  yellow-backs  and 
slowly  counted  out  one  hundred  dollars.  "I'm  trying 
to  believe  you  mean  what  you  say,  Hugh,"  he  said. 

Hugh's  fingers  closed  eagerly  over  the  crackling  notes. 
"Now  that's  white  of  you,  after  everything  I  said! 
You're  a  good  fellow,  Harry,  after  all,  and  I'll  always 
say  so.  I  wish  Old  Gooseberry  was  half  as  decent  in  a 
money  way.  He  seems  to  think  fifty  dollars  a  week  is 
plenty  till  I  marry  and  settle  down.  He  talks  of  retir 
ing  then,  and  I  suppose  he'll  come  down  handsomely, 
and  give  me  a  chance  to  look  my  debts  in  the  face." 
He  pocketed  the  money  witH  an  air  of  relief  and  picked 
up  his  hat  and  cane. 

Just  then  from  the  dusty  street  came  the  sound  of 
carriage-wheels  and  the  click  of  the  gate-latch.  ^ 

"It's  Bishop  Ludlow,"  he  said,  glancing  through  the 
window.  "He's  coming  in.  I  think  I'll  slip  out  the  side 
way.  Thanks  for  the  loan  and — I'll  think  over  what 
you've  said !" 

Avoiding  the  bishop,  Hugh  stepped  toward  the  gate. 
The  money  was  in  his  pocket.  .Well,  one  of  these  days 

45 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

he  would  not  have  to  grovel  for  a  paltry  fifty  dollars ! 
He  would  be  his  own  master,  and  could  afford  to  let 
Harry  Sanderson  and  everybody  else  think  what  they 
liked. 

"So  I'm  playing  a  part,  am  I!"  he  said  to  himself. 
"Why  should  your  Holiness  trouble  yourself  over  it,  if  I 
am !  Not  because  you're  so  careful  of  the  Governor's 
feelings ;  not  by  a  long  shot !  It's  because  you  choose  to 
think  Jessica  Holme  is  too  good  for  me!  That's  where 
the  shoe  pinches!  Perhaps  you'd  like  to  play  at  that 
game  yourself,  eh  ?" 

He  walked  jauntily  up  the  street — toward  the  door 
with  the  little  barred  window. 

"The  old  man  is  fond  of  her.  He  thinks  I  mean  to 
settle  down  and  let  the  moss  grow  over  my  ears,  and  he'll 
do  the  proper  thing.  It'll  be  a  good  way  to  put  my  head 
above  water  and  keep  it  there.  It  must  be  soon,  though !" 
A  smile  came  to  his  face,  a  pretentious,  boastful  smile, 
and  his  shining  patent-leathers  stepped  more  confidently. 
"She's  the  finest-looking  girl  in  this  town,  even  without 
her  eyes.  She  may  get  back  her  sight  sometime.  But 
even  if  she  doesn't,  blindness  in  a  wife  might  not  be  such 
a  bad  thing,  after  all  I" 


46 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  BISHOP   SPEAKS 

Inside  the  study,  meanwhile,  the  bishop  was  greeting 
Harry  Sanderson.  He  had  officiated  at  his  ordination 
and  liked  him.  His  eyes  took  in  the  simple  order  of  the 
room,  lingering  with  a  light  tinge  of  disapproval  upon 
the  violin  case  in  the  corner,  and  with  a  deeper  shade  of 
question  upon  the  jewel  on  the  other's  finger — a  pigeon- 
blood  ruby  in  a  setting  curiously  twisted  of  the  two  ini 
tial  letters  of  his  name. 

There  came  to  his  mind  for  an  instant  a  whisper  of 
early  prodigalities  and  wildnesses  which  he  had  heard. 
For  the  lawyer  who  had  listened  to  Harry  Sanderson's 
recital  on  the  night  of  the  making  of  the  will  had  not 
considered  it  a  professional  disclosure.  He  had  thought 
it  a  "good  story/'  and  had  told  it  at  his  club,  whence  it 
had  percolated  at  leisure  through  the  heavier  strata  of 
town-talk.  The  tale,  however,  had  seemed  rather  to  in 
crease  than  to  discourage  popular  interest  in  Harry  San 
derson.  The  bishop  knew  that  those  whose  approval  had 
been  withheld  were  in  the  hopeless  minority,  and  that 
even  these  could  not  have  denied  that  he  possessed  desir- 

47 


SATAN    SANDERSON" 

able  qualities — a  manner  by  turns  sparkling  and  grave, 
picturesqucness  in  the  pulpit,  and  the  unteachable  tone 
of  blood — and  had  infused  new  life  into  a  generally 
sleepy  parish.  He  had  dismissed  the  whisper  with  a 
smile,  but  oddly  enough  it  recurred  to  him  now  at  sight 
of  the  ruby  ring. 

"I  looked  in  to  tell  you  a  bit  of  news,"  said  the  bishop. 
"I've  just  come  from  David  Stires — he  has  a  letter  from 
Van  Lennap,  the  great  eye-surgeon  of  Vienna.  He  dis 
agrees  with  the  rest  of  them — thinks  Jessica's  case  may 
not  be  hopeless." 

The  cloud  that  Hugh's  call  had  left  on  Harry's  coun 
tenance  lifted. 
1     "Thank  God  !"  he  said.   "Will  she  go  to  him  ?" 

The  bishop  looked  at  him  curiously,  for  the  exclama 
tion  seemed  to  hold  more  than  a  conventional  relief. 

"He  is  to  be  in  America  next  month.  He  will  come 
here  then  to  examine,  and  perhaps  to  operate.  An  ex 
ceptional  girl,"  went  on  the  bishop,  "with  a  remarkable 
talent!  The  angel  in  the  chapel  porch,  I  suppose  you 
know,  is  her  modelling,  though  that  isn't  just  maseuline 
enough  in  feature  to  suit  me.  The  Scriptures  are  silent 
on  the  subject  of  woman-angels  in  Heaven;  though, 
mind  you,  I  don't  say  they're  not  common  on  earth!" 
The  bishop  chuckled  mildly  at  his  own  epigram. 

18 


THE    BISHOP    SPEAKS 

"Poor  child !"  he  continued  more  soberly.  "It  will  be 
a  terrible  thing  for  her  if  this  last  hope  fails  her,  too ! 
Especially  now,  when  she  and  Hugh  are  to  make  a  match 
of  it." 

Harry's  face  was  turned  away,  or  the  bishop  would 
have  seen  it  suddenly  startled.  "To  make  a  match  of 
it !"  To  hide  the  flush  he  felt  staining  his  cheek,  Harry 
bent  to  close  the  safe.  A  something  that  had  darkled 
in  some  obscure  depth  of  his  being,  whose  existence  he 
had  not  guessed,  was  throbbing  now  to  a  painful  resent 
ment.  Jessica  was  to  marry  Hugh ! 

"A  handsome  fellow — Hugh !"  said  the  bishop.  "He 
seems  to  have  returned  with  a  new  heart — a  brand 
plucked  from  the  burning.  You  had  the  same  alma 
mater,  I  think  you  told  me.  Your  influence  has  done  the 
boy  good,  Sanderson !"  He  laid  his  hand  kindly  on  the 
other's  shoulder.  "The  fact  that  you  were  in  college  to 
gether  makes  him  look  up  to  you — as  the  whole  parish 
does,"  he  added. 

Harry  was  setting  the  combination,  and  did  not  an 
swer.  But  through  the  turmoil  in  his  brain  a  satiric 
voice  kept  repeating : 

"No,  they  don't  call  me  'Satan'  now !" 


49 


CHAPTER   VI 

,WHAT  CAME  OF   A   WEDDING 

The  white  house  in  the  aspens  was  in  gala  attire. 
Flowers — great  banks  of  bloom — were  massed  in  the 
hall,  along  the  stairway  and  in  the  window-seats,  and 
wreaths  of  delicate  fern  trembled  on  the  prim-hung 
chandeliers.  Over  all  breathed  the  sweet  fragrance  of 
jasmin.  Musicians  sat  behind  a  screen  of  palms  in  a 
corridor,  and  a  long  scarlet  carpet  strip  ran  down  the 
front  steps  to  the  driveway,  up  which  passed  bravely 
dressed  folk,  arriving  in  carriages  and  on  foot,  to  wit 
ness  the  completion  of  a  much-booted  romance. 

For  a  fortnight  this  afternoon's  event  had  been  the 
chat  of  the  town,  for  David  Stires,  who  to-day  retired 
from  active  business,  was  its  magnate,  the  owner  of  its 
finest  single  estate  and  of  its  most  important  bank. 
From  his  scapegrace  boyhood  Hugh  Stires  had  made 
himself  the  subject  of  uncomfortable  discussion.  His 
sudden  disappearance  after  the  rumored  quarrel  with 
his  father,  and  the  advent  of  Jessica  Holme,  had  fur 
nished  the  community  sufficient  material  for  gossip.  The 

50 


WHAT    CAME    OF   A    WEDDING 

wedding  had  capped  this  gossip  with  an  appropriate  cli 
max.  Tongues  had  wagged  over  its  pros  and  cons — for 
Hugh's  past  had  induced  a  wholesome  skepticism  of  his 
future.  But  the  carping  were  willing  to  let  bygones  be 
bygones,  and  the  wiseacres,  to  whose  experience  mar 
riage  stood  as  a  sedative  for  the  harum-scarum,  augured 
well. 

There  was  an  additional  element  of  romance,  too,  in 
the  situation;  for  Jessica,  who  had  never  yet  seen  her 
lover,  would  see  her  husband.  The  great  surgeon  on 
whose  prognostication  she  had  built  so  much,  had  ar 
rived  and  had  operated.  He  was  not  alone  an  eminent 
consultant  in  diagnosis,  but  an  operator  of  masterly  pre 
cision,  whose  daring  of  scalpel  had  made  him  well-nigh 
a  last  resort  in  the  delicate  adventurings  of  eye  surgery. 
The  experiment  had  been  completely  successful,  and 
Jessica's  hope  of  vision  had  become  a  sure  and  certain 
promise. 

To  see  once  again!  To  walk  free  and  careless!  To 
mold  the  plastic  clay  into  the  shapes  that  thronged  her 
brain!  To  finish  the  statue  which  she  had  never  yet 
shown  to  any  one,  in  the  great  sky-lighted  attic !  To  see 
flowers,  and  the  sunset,  the  new  green  of  the  trees 
in  spring,  and  the  sparkle  of  the  snow  in  winter,  and 
people's  faces !— to  see  Hugh !  That  had  been  at  the 

51 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

core  of  her  thought  when  it  reeled  dizzily  back  from  the 
merciful  oblivion  of  the  anesthetic,  to  touch  the  strange 
gauze  wrappings  on  her  eyes — the  tight  bandage  that 
must  stay  for  so  long,  while  nature  plied  her  silent  med 
icaments  of  healing. 

Meanwhile  the  accepted  lover  had  become  the  impor 
tunate  one.  The  operation  over,  there  had  remained 
many  days  before  the  bandages  could  be  removed — be 
fore  Jessica  could  be  given  her  first  glimpse  of  the  world 
for  nearly  three  years.  Hugh  had  urged  against  delay. 
If  he  had  stringent  reasons  of  his  own,  he  was  silent  con 
cerning  them.  And  Jessica,  steeped  in  the  delicious 
wonder  of  new  and  inchoate  sensations,  had  yielded. 

So  it  had  come  about  that  the  wedding  was  to  be  on 
this  hot  August  afternoon,  although  it  would  be  yet  some 
time  before  the  eye-bandages  might  be  laid  aside,  save 
in  a  darkened  room.  In  her  girlish,  passionate  ideality, 
Jessica  had  offered  a  sacrifice  to  her  sentiment.  She  had 
promised  herself  that  the  first  form  her  new  sight  should 
behold  should  be,  not  her  lover,  but  her  husband !  The 
idea  pleased  her  sense  of  romance.  So,  hugging  the 
fancy,  she  had  denied  herself.  She  was  to  see  Hugh  for 
the  first  time  in  a  shaded  room,  after  the  glare  and  nerv 
ous  excitement  of  the  ceremony. 

Gossip  had  heard  and  had  seized  upon  this  tidbit  with 
52 


.WHAT    CAME    OF   A   WEDDIXG 

relish.  The  blind  marriage — a  bride  with  hoodwinked 
eyes,  who  had  never  seen  the  man  she  was  to  marry — 
the  moment's  imperfect  vision  of  him,  a  poor  dole  for 
memory  to  carry  into  the  honeymoon — these  ingredients 
had  given  the  occasion  a  titillating  sense  of  the  extraor 
dinary  and  romantic,  and  sharpened  the  buzz  of  the 
waiting  guests,  as  they  whiled  away  the  irksome  minutes. 

It  was  a  sweltering  afternoon,  and  in  the  wide  east 
parlor,  limp  handkerchiefs  and  energetic  fans  fought 
vainly  against  the  intolerable  heat.  There,  as  the  clock 
struck  six,  a  hundred  pairs  of  eyes  galloped  between  two 
centers  of  interest:  the  door  at  which  the  bride  would 
enter,  and  the  raised  platform  at  the  other  end  of  the 
room  where,  prayer-book  in  hand,  in  his  wide  robes  and 
flowing  sleeves,  Harry  Sanderson  had  just  taken  his 
stand.  Perhaps  more  looked  at  Harry  than  at  the  door. 

He  seemed  his  usual  magnetic  self  as  he  stood  there, 
backed  by  the  flowers,  his  waving  brown  hair  un- 
smoothed,  the  ruby-ring  glowing  dull-red  against  the 
d;ark  leather  of  the  book  he  held.  Few  felt  it  much  a 
matter  of  regret  that  the  humdrum  and  less  personable 
Bishop  of  the  Diocese  should  be  away  at  convocation, 
since  the  young  rector  furnished  the  final  esthetic  touch 
to  a  perfectly  appointed  function.  But  Harry  Sander 
son  was  far  from  feeling  the  grave,  alien,  figure  he  ap- 

53 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

peared.  In  the  past  weeks  he  had  waged  a  silent  warfare 
with  himself,  bitterer  because  repressed.  The  strange 
new  thing  that  had  sprung  up  in  him  he  had  trampled 
mercilessly  under.  From  the  thought  that  he  loved  the 
promised  wife  of  another,  a  quick,  fastidious  sense  in 
him  recoiled  abashed.  This  painful  struggle  had  been 
sharpened  by  his  sense  of  Hugh's  utter  worthlessness. 
To  that  rustling  assemblage,  the  man  who  was  to  make 
those  solemn  promises  was  David  Stires'  son,  who  had 
had  his  fling,  turned  over  his  new  leaf  becomingly,  and 
was  now  offering  substantial  hostages  to  good  repute. 
To  him,  Harry  Sanderson,  he  was  a  flaneur,  a  marginless 
gambler  in  the  futures  of  his  father's  favor  and  a  wom 
an's  heart.  He  had  shrunk  from  the  ceremony,  but  cir 
cumstances  had  constrained  him.  There  had  been  choice 
only  between  an  evasion — to  which  he  would  not  stoop 
— and  a  flat  refusal,  the  result  of  which  would  have  been 
a  footless  scandal — ugly  town-talk — a  sneer  at  himself 
and  his  motives — a  quietus,  possibly,  to  his  whole  career. 

So  now  he  stood  to  face  a  task  which  was  doubly  pain 
ful,  but  which  he  would  go  through  with  to  the  bitter 
end! 

Only  a  moment  Harry  stood  waiting;  then  the  palm- 
screened  musicians  began  the  march,  and  Hugh  took  his 
place,  animated  and  assured,  looking  the  flushed  and  ex- 

54 


WHAT    CAME    OF   A    WEDDING 

pectant  bridegroom.  At  the  same  instant  the  chattering 
and  hubbub  ceased ;  Jessica,  on  the  arm  of  the  old  man, 
erect  but  walking  feebly  with  his  cane,  was  advancing 
down  the  roped  lane. 

She  was  in  simple  white,  the  point-lace  on  the  frock 
an  heirloom.  Her  bronze  hair  was  drawn  low,  hiding 
much  of  the  disfiguring  bandage,  under  which  her  lips 
were  parted  in  a  half-smile,  human,  intimate  and  eager, 
full  of  the  hope  and  intoxication  of  living. 

Harry's  eyes  dropped  to  the  opened  book,  though  he 
knew  the  office  by  heart.  He  spoke  the  time-worn  adjura 
tion  with  clear  enunciation,  with  almost  perfunctory  dis 
tinctness.  He  did  not  look  at  Hugh. 

"//  any  man  can  show  just  cause  wliy  they  may  not 
lawfully  be  joined  together,,  let  him  speak,  or  else  here* 
after  for  ever  hold  his  peace."  In  the  pause — the  slightest 
pause — that  turned  the  page,  he  felt  an  insane  prompt 
ing  to  tear  off  his  robes,  to  proclaim  to  this  roomful  of 
heated,  gaping,  fan-fluttering  humanity,  that  he  him 
self,  a  minister  of  the  gospel,  the  celebrant  of  the  rite, 
knew  "just  cause" ! 

The  choking  impulse  passed.  The  periods  rolled  on — 
the  long  white  glove  was  slipped  from  the  hand,  the 
ring  put  on  the  finger,  and  the  pair,  whom  God  and 
Harry  Sanderson  had  joined  together,  were  kneeling  on 

55 


SATAN"   SANDERSON 

the  white  satin  prie-dieu  with  bowed  heads  under  the 
final  invocation.    As  they  knelt,  choir  voices  rose: 

"O  perfect  love,  all  human  thought  transcending, 
Lowly  we  kneel  in  prayer  before  Thv  throne — " 

Then,  while  the  music  lingered,  the  hush  of  the  room 
broke  in  a  confused  murmur;  the  white  ribbon-wound 
ropes  were  let  down,  and  a  voluble  wave  of  congratu- 
lators  swept  over  the  spot.  In  a  moment  more  Harry 
found  himself  laying  off  his  robes  in  the  next  room. 

With  a  sigh  of  relief,  he  stepped  through  the  wide 
French  window  into  the  garden,  fresh  with  the  scent  of 
growing  things  and  the  humid  odors  of  the  soil.  The 
twitter  and  bustle  he  had  left  came  painfully  out  to 
him,  and  a  whiff  of  evening  coolness  breathed  through 
the  oppressive  air.  The  strain  over,  he  longed  for  the 
solitude  of  his  study.  But  David  Stires  had  asked  him 
to  remain  for  a  final  word,  since  bride  and  groom  were 
to  leave  on  an  early  evening  train ;  the  old  man  was  to 
accompany  them  a  part  of  the  journey,  and  "the  Stires 
place"  was  to  be  closed  for  an  indefinite  period.  Harry 
found  a  bench  and  sat  down,  where  camelias  dropped 
like  blood. 

What  would  Jessica  suffer  in  the  inevitable  awaken 
ing,  when  the  tinted  petals  of  her  dreams  were  shattered 

56 


WHAT    CAME    OF    A    WEDDING 

and  strewn  ?  For  the  first  time  he  looked  down  through 
his  sore  sense  of  outrage  and  protest  to  deeps  in  him 
self — as  a  diver  peers  through  a  water-glass  to  the  depths 
of  a  river  troubled  and  opaque,  dimly  descrying  vague 
shapes  of  ill.  Poetry,  passion  and  dreams  had  been  his 
also,  but  he  had  dreamed  too  late ! 

It  was  not  long  before  the  sound  of  gay  voices  and  of 
carriage-wheels  came  around  the  corner  of  the  house, 
for  the  reception  was  to  be  curtailed.  There  had  been 
neither  bridesmaids  nor  groomsmen,  and  there  was  no 
skylarking  on  the  cards ;  the  guests,  who  on  lesser  occa 
sions  would  have  lingered  to  throw  rice  and  old  shoes, 
departed  from  the  house  in  the  aspens  with  primness 
and  dignity. 

One  by  one  he  heard  the  carriages  roll  down  the  grav 
eled  driveway.  A  bicycle  careened  across  the  lawn  from 
a  side-gate,  carrying  a  bank  messenger — the  last  shaft 
of  commerce  before  old  David  Stires  washed  his  tena 
cious  mind  of  business.  A  few  moments  later  the  mes 
senger  reappeared  and  rode  away  whistling.  A  last 
chime  of  voices  talking  together — Harry  could  distin 
guish  Hugh's  voice  now — and  at  length  quiet  told  him 
the  last  of  the  guests  were  gone.  Thinking  that  he  would 
now  see  his  old  friends  for  a  last  farewell,  he  rose  and 
went  slowly  back  through  the  French  window. 

57 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

The  east  room  was  empty,  save  for  servants  who  were 
gathering  some  of  the  cut  flowers  for  themselves.  He 
stood  aimlessly  for  a  few  moments  looking  about  him. 
A  white  carnation  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  dais,  fallen 
from  Jessica's  shower-bouquet.  He  picked  this  up,  ab 
stractedly  smelled  its  perfume,  and  drew  the  stem 
through  his  buttonhole.  Then,  passing  into  the  next 
room,  he  found  his  robes  leisurely  and  laid  them  by — 
he  had  now  only  to  embellish  the  sham  with  his  best 
wishes ! 

All  at  once  he  heard  voices  in  the  library.  He  opened 
the  door  and  entered. 

Harry  Sanderson  stopped  stock-still.  In  the  room 
sat  old  David  Stires  in  his  wheel-chair  opposite  his  son. 
He  was  deadly  pale,  and  his  fierce  eyes  blazed  like  fire 
in  tinder.  And  what  a  Hugh !  Not  the  indolently  gay 
prodigal  Harry  had  known  in  the  past,  nor  the  flushed 
bridegroom  of  a  half-hour  ago!  It  was  a  cringing,  a 
hang-dog  Hugh  now ;  with  a  slinking  dread  in  the  face 
— a  trembling  of  the  hands — a  tense  expectation  in  the 
posture.  The  thin  line  across  his  brow  was  a  livid  pal 
lor.  His  eyes  lifted  to  Harry's  for  an  instant,  then 
returned  in  a  kind  of  fascination  to  a  slip  of  paper  on 
the  desk,  on  which  his  father's  forefinger  rested,  like  a 
nail  transfixing  an  animate  infamy. 

58 


WHAT    CAME    OF    A    WEDDING 

"Sanderson,"  said  the  old  man  in  a  low,  hoarse,  un 
natural  voice,  "come  in  and  shut  the  door.  God  forgive 
us — we  have  married  Jessica  to  a  common  thief !  Hugh 
— my  son,  my  only  child,  whom  I  have  forgiven  beyond 
all  reckoning — has  forged  my  name  to  a  draft  for  five 
thousand  dollars  I" 


59 


CHAPTER   VII 

OUT  OF  THE  DARK 

For  a  moment  there  was  dead  silence  in  the  room. 
In  the  hall  the  tall  clock  struck  ponderously,  and  a 
porch  blind  slammed  beneath  a  caretaker's  hand. 
Harry's  breath  caught  in  his  throat,  and  the  old  man's 
eye  again  impaled  his  hapless  son. 

Hugh  threw  up  his  head  with  an  attempt  at  jaunti- 
ness,  but  with  furtive  apprehension  in  every  muscle — 
for  he  could  not  solve  the  look  he  saw  on  his  father's 
face — and  said: 

<cYoM  act  as  if  it  were  a  cool  million !  I'm  no  worse 
than  a  lot  who  have  better  luck  than  I.  Suppose  I  did 
draw  the  five  thousand? — you  were  going  to  give  me 
ten  for  a  wedding  present.  I  had  to  have  the  money 
then,  and  you  wouldn't  have  given  it  to  me.  You  know 
that  as  well  as  I  do.  Besides,  I  was  going  to  take  it 
up  myself  and  you  would  never  have  been  the  wiser. 
He  promised  to  hold  it — it's  a  low  trick  for  him  to 
round  on  me  like  this.  I'll  pay  him  off  for  it  some 
time  !  I  don't  see  that  it's  anybody  else's  business  but 

60 


OUT    OF    THE    DARK 

ours,  anyway/'  he  continued,  with  a  surly  glance  at 
Harry. 

Harry  had  been  staring  at  him,  but  with  a  vision 
turned  curiously  backward — a  vision  that  seemed  to  see 
Hugh  standing  at  a  carpeted  dais  in  a  flower-hung  room, 
while  his  own  voice  said  out  of  a  lurid  shadow:  "Wilt 
tlwu  have  this  man  to  be  thy  luedded  husband  .  .  ." 

"Stay,  Sanderson,"  said  the  old  man;  then  turning 
to  Hugh:  "Who  advanced  you  money  on  this  and 
promised  to  'hold  it'  ?" 

"Doctor  Moreau." 

"He  profited  by  it  ?" 

"He  got  his  margin,"  said  Hugh  sullenly. 

"How  much  margin  did  he  get  ?" 

"A  thousand." 

"Where  is  the  rest?"  David  Stires'  voice  was  like  a 
whip  of  steel. 

Hugh  hesitated  a  moment.  He  had  still  a  few  hun 
dreds  in  pocket,  but  he  did  not  mention  them. 

"I  used  most  of  it.    I — had  a  few  debts." 

"Debts  of  honor,  I  presume !" 

Hugh's  sensibility  quivered  at  the  fierce,  grating  irony 
of  the  inquiry. 

"If  you'd  been  more  decent  with  spending-money," 
he  said  with  a  flare  of  the  old  effrontery,  "I'd  have  been 

61 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

all  right!  Ever  since  I  came  home  you've  kept  me 
strapped.  I  was  ashamed  to  stick  up  any  more  of  my 
friends.  And  of  course  I  couldn't  borrow  from  Jessica." 

"Ashamed !"  exclaimed  the  old  man  with  harsh  stern 
ness.  "You  are  without  the  decency  of  shame !  If  you 
were  capable  of  feeling  it,  you  would  not  mention  her 
name  now !" 

Hugh  thought  he  saw  a  glimmer  through  the  storm- 
cloud.  Jessica  was  his  anchor  to  windward.  What  hurt 
him,  would  hurt  her.  He  would  pull  through ! 

"Well,"  he  said,  "it's  done,  and  there's  no  good  mak 
ing  such  a  row  about  it.  She's  my  wife  and  she'll  stand 
by  me,  if  nobody  else  does !" 

No  one  had  ever  seen  such  a  look  on  David  Stires' 
face  as  came  to  it  now — a  sudden  blaze  of  fury  and  right 
eous  scorn,  that  burned  it  like  a  brand. 

"You  impudent  blnckguard !  You  drag  my  name  in 
the  gutter  and  then  try  to  trade  on  my  self -respect  and 
Jessica's  affection.  You  thought  you  would  take  it  up 
yourself — and  I  would  be  none  the  wiser !  And  if  I  did 
find  it  out,  you  counted  on  my  love  for  the  poor  deluded 
girl  you  have  married,  to  make  me  condone  your  crimi 
nality — to  perjure  myself — to  admit  the  signature  and 
shield  you  from  the  consequences.  You  imagine  because 
you  are  my  son,  that  you  can  do  this  thing  and  all  still 

62 


OUT    OF   THE    DARK 

go  on  as  before !  Do  you  suppose  I  don't  consider  Jes 
sica  ?  Do  you  think  because  you  have  fooled  and  cheated 
her — and  me — and  married  her,  that  I  will  give  her  now 
to  a  caught  thief — a  common  jailbird  ?" 

Hugh  started.  A  sickly  pallor  came  to  his  sallow 
cheek.  That  salient  chin,  that  mouth  close-gripped — 
those  words,  vengeful,  vindictive,  the  utterance  of  a 
wrath  so  mighty  in  the  feeble  frame  as  to  seem  almost 
uncouth — smote  him  with  a  mastering  terror. 

A  jailbird!  That  was  what  his  father  called  him! 
Did  he  mean  to  give  him  up,  then?  To  have  him 
arrested — tried — put  in  prison  ?  When  he  had  canvassed 
the  risks  of  discovery,  he  had  imagined  a  scene,  bitter 
anger — perhaps  even  disinheritance.  His  marriage  to 
Jessica,  he  had  reckoned,  would  cover  that  extremity. 
But  he  had  never  thought  of  something  worse.  Now,  for 
the  first  time,  he  saw  himself  in  the  grip  of  that  imper 
sonal  thing  known  as  the  law — handcuffs  on  his  wrists, 
riding  through  the  streets  in  the  "Black-Maria" — stand 
ing  at  the  dock  an  outcast,  gazed  at  with  contempt  by  all 
the  town — at  length  sitting  in  a  cell  somewhere,  no  more 
pleasures  or  gaming,  or  fine  linen,  but  dressed  in  con 
vict's  dress,  loose,  ill-shapen,  hanging  on  him  like  bags, 
with  broad  black-and-white  stripes.  He  had  been 
through  the  penetentiary  once.  He  remembered  the  sul- 

63 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

len,  stolid  faces,  the  rough,  hobnailed  shoes,  the  cropped 
heads!  His  mind  turned  from  the  picture  with  fear 
and  loathing. 

In  the  thoughts  that  were  darting  through  Hugh's 
mind,  there  was  none  now  of  regret  or  of  pity  for  Jes 
sica.  His  fear  was  the  fear  of  the  trapped  spoiler,  who 
discerns  capture  and  its  consequent  penalties  in  the  pa 
trolling  bull's-eye  flashed  upon  him.  He  studied  his  fa 
ther  with  hunted,  calculating  eyes,  as  the  old  man  turned 
to  Harry  Sanderson. 

"Sanderson,"  said  David  Stires,  once  more  in  his  even, 
deadly  voice,  "Jessica  is  waiting  in  the  room  above  this. 
She  will  not  understand  the  delay.  Will  you  go  to  her  ? 
Make  some  excuse — any  you  can  think  of — till  I  come." 

Harry  nodded  and  left  the  room,  shutting  the  door 
carefully  behind  him,  carrying  with  him  the  cowering 
helpless  look  with  which  Hugh  saw  himself  left  alone 
with  his  implacable  judge.  What  to  say  to  her  ?  How  to 
say  it  ? 

As  he  passed  the  hall,  the  haste  of  demolition  had 
already  begun.  Florists'  assistants  were  carrying  the 
plants  from  the  east  room,  and  through  the  open  door 
a  man  was  rolling  up  the  red  carpet.  The  cluttered 
emptiness  struck  him  with  a  sense  of  fateful  symbolism 
though  it  shadowed  forth  the  shattering  of  Jes- 
64 


OUT    OF   THE    DARK 

sica's  ordered  dream  of  happiness.  He  mounted  the 
stair  as  if  a  pack  swung  from  his  shoulders.  He  paused 
a  moment  at  the  door,  then  knocked,  turned  the  knob, 
and  entered. 

There,  in  the  middle  of  the  blue-hung  room,  in  her 
wedding-dress,  with  her  bandaged  eyes,  and  her  bridal 
bouquet  on  the  table,  stood  Jessica.  Twilight  was  near, 
but  even  so,  all  the  shutters  were  drawn  save  one, 
through  which  a  last  glow  of  refracted  sunlight  sifted 
to  fall  upon  his  face.  Her  hands  were  clasped  before 
her,  he  could  hear  her  breathing — the  full  hurried  res 
piration  of  expectancy. 

Then,  while  his  hand  closed  the  door  behind  him,  a 
thing  unexpected,  anomalous,  happened — a  thing  that 
took  him  as  utterly  by  surprise  as  if  the  solid  floor  had 
yawned  before  him.  Slim  fingers  tore  away  the  broad 
encircling  bandage.  She  started  forward.  Her  arms 
were  flung  about  his  neck. 

"Hugh !    .    .    .    Hugh !"  she  cried.    "My  husband !" 

The  paleness  was  stricken  suddenly  from  Harry's 
face.  An  odd,  dazed  color — a  flush  of  mortification,  of 
self-reproach,  flooded  it  from  chin  to  brow.  Despite 
himself,  he  had  felt  his  lips  molding  to  an  answering 
kiss  beneath  her  own.  He  drew  a  gasping  breath,  his 
hand  nervously  caught  the  bandage,  replaced  it  over 

65 


SATAX   SfANDEBSON 

the  eyes,  and  tied  it  tightly,  putting  down  her  protest 
ing  hands. 

"Oh,  Hugh,"  she  pleaded,  "not  for  a  moment — not 
when  I  am  so  happy !  Your  face  is  what  I  dreamed  it 
must  be !  Why  did  you  make  me  wait  so  long?  And  I 
can  see,  Hugh !  I  can  really  see !  Let  it  stay  off,  just 
for  one  little  moment  more !" 

He  held  her  hands  by  force.  "Jessica — wait !"  he 
said  in  a  broken  whisper.  "You  must  not  take  it  off 
again — not  now!" 

An  incredible  confusion  enveloped  him — his  tongue 
cleaved  to  the  roof  of  his  mouth.  Not  only  had  the 
painful  contretemps  nonplussed  and  dismayed  him ;  not 
only  had  it  heightened  and  horrified  the  realization  of 
what  she  must  presently  be  told.  It  had  laid  a  careless 
hand  upon  his  own  secret,  touching  it  with  an  almost 
vulgar  mockery.  It  had  overthrown  in  an  instant  the 
barricades  he  had  been  piling.  The  pressure  of  those 
lips  on  his  had  sent  coursing  to  the  furthest  recesses  of 
his  nature  a  great  wave  which  dikes  nor  locks  might 
ever  again  forbid. 

Her  look,  leaping  to  his  face,  had  not  noted  the  minis 
terial  dress,  nor  in  the  ecstasy  of  the  moment  did  she 
catch  the  agitation  in  his  voice;  or  if  she  did,  she  at 
tributed  it  to  a  feeling  like  her  own.  She  was  laughing 

66 


OUT    OF    THE    DARK 

happily,  while  he  stood,  trembling  slightly,  holding  him 
self  with  an  effort. 

"What  a  dear  goose  you  are!"  she  said.  "The  light 
didn't  hurt  them — indeed,  indeed !  Only  to  think, 
Hugh !  Your  wife  will  have  her  sight !  Do  go  and  tell 
your  father !  He  will  be  waiting  to  know  I" 

Harry  made  some  incoherent  reply.  He  was  desper 
ately  anxious  to  get  away — his  thought  was  a  snarl  of 
tatters,  threaded  by  one  lucid  purpose:  to  spare  her 
coming  self-abasement  this  sardonic  humiliation.  He 
did  not  think  of  a  time  in  the  future,  when  her  error 
must  naturally  disclose  itself.  The  tangle  spelled  Now. 
Not  to  tell  her — not  to  let  her  know ! 

He  almost  ran  from  the  room  and  down  the  stair. 


G7 


CHAPTER  VIII 

"AM  i  MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER?" 

At  the  foot  of  the  landing  he  paused,  drawing  a  deep 
breath  as  if  to  lift  a  weight  of  air.  He  needed  to  get 
his  bearings — to  win  back  a  measure  of  calmness. 

As  he  stood  there,  Hugh  came  from  the  library.  His 
head  was  down  and  he  went  furtively  and  slinkingly,  as 
though  dreading  even  a  casual  regard.  He  snatched  his 
hat  from  the  rack,  passed  out  of  the  house,  and  was 
swallowed  up  in  the  dusk.  David  Stires  had  followed 
his  son  into  the  hall.  He  answered  the  gloomy  question 
in  Harry's  eyes: 

"He  is  gone/'  he  said,  "and  I  hope  to  Heaven  I  may 
never  see  his  face  again !"  Then,  slowly  and  feebly,  he 
ascended  the  stair. 

The  library  windows  were  shadowed  by  shrubbery, 
and  the  sunset  splintered  against  the  wall  in  a  broad 
stripe,  like  cloth  of  crimson  silk.  Harry  leaned  his  hot 
forehead  against  the  chill  marble  of  the  mantelpiece 
and  gazed  frowningly  at  the  dark  Korean  desk — an  an 
tique  gift  of  his  own  to  David  Stires — where  the  slip 

68 


"AM    I    MY   BROTHER'S    KEEPER" 

of  paper  still  lay  that  had  spelled  such  ruin  and  shame. 
From  the  rear  of  the  house  came  the  pert,  tittering 
laugh  of  a  maid  bantering  an  expressman,  and  the 
heavy,  rattling  thump  of  rolled  trunks.  There  was 
something  ghastly  in  the  incomprehension  of  all  the 
house  save  the  four  chief  actors  of  the  melodrama.  The 
travesty  was  over,  the  curtain  rung  down  to  clapping  of 
hands,  the  scene-shifters  clearing  away — and  behind  all, 
in  the  wings,  unseen  by  any  spectator,  the  last  act  of  a 
living  tragedy  was  rushing  to  completion. 

Ten,  fifteen  minutes  passed,  and  old  David  Stires 
reentered  the  room,  went  feebly  to  his  wheel-chair,  and 
sat  down.  He  sat  a  moment  in  silence,  looking  at  a 
portrait  of  Jessica — a  painting  by  Altsheler  that  hung 
above  the  mantel — in  a  light  fleecy  gown,  with  one  white 
rose  in  the  bronze  hair.  When  he  spoke  the  body's  in 
firmity  had  become  all  at  once  pitifully  apparent.  The 
fiery  wrath  seemed  suddenly  to  have  burned  itself  out, 
leaving  only  dead  ashes  behind.  His  eyes  had  shrunk 
away  into  almost  empty  sockets.  The  authority  had 
faded  from  his  face.  He  was  all  at  once  a  feeble,  gentle- 
looking,  ill,  old  man,  with  white  mustaches  and  uncer 
tain  hands,  dressed  in  ceremonial  broadcloth. 

"I  have  told  her,"  he  said  presently,  in  a  broken  voice. 
"You  are  kind,  Sanderson,  very  kind.  God  help  us !" 

69 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"What  has  God  to  do  with  it?"  fell  a  voice  behind 
them.  Harry  faced  about.  It  was  Jessica,  as  he  had 
first  seen  her  in  the  upper  room,  with  the  bandage 
across  her  eyes. 

"What  has  God  to  do  with  it?"  she  repeated,  in  a 
hard  tone.  "Perhaps  Mr.  Sanderson  can  tell  us.  It  is 
in  his  line!" 

"Please—"  said  Harry. 

He  could  not  have  told  what  he  would  have  asked, 
though  the  accent  was  almost  one  of  entreaty.  The 
harsh  satire  touched  his  sacred  calling;  coming  from 
her  lips  it  affronted  at  once  his  religious  instinct  and  his 
awakened  love.  It  was  all  he  said,  for  he  stopped  sud 
denly  at  sight  of  her  face,  pain-frosted,  white  as  the 
folded  cloth. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  turning  toward  the  voice,  "I  remember 
what  you  said  that  night,  right  here  in  this  very  room 
— that  you  sowed  your  wild  oats  at  college  with  Hugh — 
that  they  were  'a  tidy  crop' !  You  were  strong,  and  he 
was  weak.  You  led,  and  he  followed.  You  were  'Satan 
Sanderson/  Abbot  of  The  Saints,  the  set  in  which  he 
learned  gambling.  Why,  it  was  in  your  rooms  that  he 
played  his  first  game  of  poker — he  told  me  so  himself ! 
And  now  he  has  gone  to  be  an  outcast,  and  you  stand 
in  the  pulpit  in  a  cassock,  you,  the  'Reverend  Henry 

70 


"AM   I   MY   BROTHER'S    KEEPER" 

Sanderson' !   You  helped  to  make  him  what  he  has  be 
come  !  Can  you  undo  it  ?" 

Harry  was  looking  at  her  with  a  stricken  countenance. 
He  had  no  answer  ready.  The  wave  of  confusion  that 
had  submerged  him  when  he  had  restored  the  bandage 
to  her  eyes  had  again  welled  over  him.  He  stood 
shocked  and  confounded.  His  hand  fumbled  at  his  lapel, 
and  the  white  carnation,  crushed  by  his  fingers,  dropped 
at  his  feet. 

"I  am  not  excusing  Hugh  now,"  she  went  on  wildly. 
"He  has  gone  beyond  excuse  or  forgiveness.  He  is  as 
dead  to  me  as  though  I  had  never  known  him,  though 
the  word  you  spoke  an  hour  ago  made  me  his  wife.  I 
shall  have  that  to  remember  all  my  life — that,  and  the 
one  moment  I  had  waited  for  so  long,  for  my  first  sight 
of  his  face,  and  my  bride's  kiss !  I  must  carry  it  with 
me  always.  I  can  never  wipe  that  face  from  my  brain, 
or  the  sting  of  that  kiss  from  my  lips — the  kiss  of  a 
forger — of  my  husband !" 

The  old  man  groaned.  "I  didn't  know  he  had  seen 
her!"  he  said  helplessly.  "Jessica,  Hugh's  sin  is  not 
Sanderson's  fault !" 

In  her  bitter  words  was  an  injustice  as  passionate  as 
her  pain,  but  for  her  life  she  could  not  help  it.  She 
was  a  woman  wrenched  and  torn,  tortured  beyond 

71 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

control,  numb  with  anguish.  Every  quivering  tendril 
of  feeling  was  a  live  protest,  every  voice  of  her  soul 
was  crying  out  against  the  fact.  In  those  dreadful  min 
utes  when  her  mind  took  in  the  full  extent  of  her 
calamity,  Hugh's  past  intimacy  and  present  grim  con 
trast  with  Harry  Sanderson  had  mercilessly  thrust 
themselves  upon  her,  and  her  agony  had  seared  the  swift 
antithesis  on  her  brain. 

To  Harry  Sanderson,  however,  her  words  fell  with  a 
wholly  disproportionate  violence.  It  had  never  occurred 
to  him  that  he  himself  had  been  individually  and  ac 
tively  the  cause  of  Hugh's  downfall.  The  accusation 
pierced  through  the  armor  of  self-esteem  that  he  had 
linked  and  riveted  with  habit.  The  same  pain  of  mind 
that  had  spurred  him,  on  that  long-ago  night,  to  the 
admission  she  had  heard,  had  started  to  new  life  a 
bared,  a  scathed,  a  rekindling  sin. 

"It  is  all -true/'  he  said.  It  was  the  inveterate  voice 
of  conscience  that  spoke.  "I  have  been  deceiving  my 
self.  I  was  my  brother's  keeper !  I  see  it  now." 

She  did  not  catch  the  deep  compunction  in  the  judi 
cial  utterance.  In  her  agony  the  very  composure  and 
restraint  cut  more  deeply  than  silence.  She  stood  an 
instant  quivering,  then  turned,  and  feeling  blindly  for 
the  door,  swept  from  their  sight. 

72 


"AM   I    MY   BROTHERS    KEEPER3' 

White  and  breathless,  Jessica  climbed  the  stair.  In 
her  room,  she  took  a  key  from  a  drawer  and  ran  swiftly 
to  the  attic-studio.  She  unlocked  the  door  with  hurried 
fingers,  tore  the  wrappings  from  the  tall  white  figure 
of  the  Prodigal  Son,  and  found  a  heavy  mallet.  She 
lifted  this  with  all  her  strength,  and  showered  blow 
upon  blow  on  the  hard  clay,  her  face  and  hair  and 
shimmering  train  powdered  with  the  white  dust,  till  the 
statue  lay  on  the  floor,  a  heap  of  tumbled  fragments. 

Fateful  and  passionate  as  the  scene  in  the  library  had 
been,  her  going  left  a  pall  of  silence  in  the  room.  Harry 
Sanderson  looked  at  David  Stires  with  pale  intentness. 

"Yet  I  would  have  given  my  life,"  he  said  in  a  low 
voice,  "to  save  her  this !" 

Something  in  the  tone  caught  the  old  man.  He 
glanced  up. 

"I  never  guessed !"  he  said  slowly.  "I  never  guessed 
that  you  loved  her,  too." 

But  Harry  had  not  heard.  He  did  not  even  know  that 
he  had  spoken  aloud. 

David  Stires  turned  his  wheel-chair  to  the  Korean 
desk,  touching  the  bell  as  he  did  so.  He  took  up  the 
draft  and  put  it  into  his  pocket.  He  pressed  a  spring, 
a  panel  dropped,  and  disclosed  a  hidden  drawer,  from 

73 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

which  he  took  a  crackling  parchment.  It  was  the  will 
against  whose  signing  Harry  had  pleaded  months  before 
in  that  same  room.  The  butler  entered. 

"Witness  my  signature,  Blake,"  he  said,  and  wrote 
his  name  on  the  last  page.  "Mr.  Sanderson  will  sign 
with  you." 

An  hour  later  the  fast  express  that  bore  Jessica  and 
David  Stires  was  shrieking  across  the  long  skeleton  rail 
road  bridge,  a  dotted  trail  of  fire  against  the  deepening 
night.  The  sound  crossed  the  still  miles.  It  called  to 
Harry  Sanderson,  where  he  sat  in  his  study  with  the 
evening  paper  before  him.  It  called  his  eyes  from  a 
paragraph  he  was  reading  through  a  painful  mist — a 
paragraph  under  heavy  leads,  on  its  front  page : 

This  city  has  seldom  seen  so  brilliant  a  gathering  as  that 
witnessed,  late  this  afternoon,  at  the  residence  of  the  groom, 
the  marriage  of  Mr.  Hugh  Stires  and  Miss  Jessica  Holme, 
both  of  this  place. 

The  ceremony  was  performed  by  the  Reverend  Henry 
Sanderson,  rector  of  St.  James. 

The  groom  Is  the  son  of  one  of  our  leading  citizens,  and 
the  beauty  and  talent  of  the  bride  have  long  made  her  noted. 
The  happy  couple,  accompanied  by  the  groom's  father,  left 
on  an  early  train,  carrying  with  them  the  congratulations 
and  good  wishes  of  the  entire  community. 

A  full  account  of  the  wedding  will  be  given  in  to-morrow 
morning's  issue. 

74 


CHAPTER  IX 

AFTER   A   YEAR 

Night  had  fallen.  The  busy  racket  of  wheeled  traffic 
was  still,  the  pavements  were  garish  with  electric  light, 
windows  were  open,  and  crowds  jostled  to  and  fro  on 
the  cool  pavements.  But  Harry  Sanderson,  as  he  walked 
slowly  back  from  a  long  ramble  in  knickerbockers  and 
norfolk  jacket  over  the  hills,  was  not  thinking  of  the 
sights  and  sounds  of  the  pleasant  evening.  He  had 
tramped  miles  since  sundown,  and  had  returned  as  he 
set  out,  gloomy,  unrequited,  a  follower  of  a  baffled  quest. 
Even  the  dog  at  his  heels  seemed  to  partake  of  his  mas 
ter's  mood ;  he  padded  along  soberly,  forging  ahead  now 
and  again  to  look  up  inquiringly  at  the  preoccupied  face. 

Set  back  from  the  street  in  a  wide  estate  of  trees  and 
shrubbery,  stood  a  great  white-porch  ed  house  that 
gloomed  darkly  from  amid  its  aspens.  Not  a  light  had 
twinkled  from  it  for  nearly  a  year.  The  little  city  had 
wondered  at  first,  then  by  degrees  had  grown  indifferent. 
The  secret  of  that  prolonged  honeymoon,  that  dearth 
and  absence,  Harry  Sanderson  and  the  bishop  alone 

75 


SATAN  SANDERSON 

could  have  told.  For  the  bishop  knew  of  Hugh's  crimi 
nal  act ;  he  was  named  executor  of  the  will  that  lay  in 
the  Korean  chest,  and  him  David  Stires  had  written  the 
truth.  His  heart  had  gone  out  with  pity  for  Jessica, 
and  understanding.  The  secret  he  locked  in  his  own 
breast,  as  did  Harry  Sanderson,  each  thinking  the  other 
ignorant  of  it. 

Since  that  wedding-day  no  shred  of  news  had  come 
to  either.  Harry  had  wished  for  none.  To  think  of 
Jessica  was  a  recurrent  pang,  and  yet  the  very  combina 
tion  of  the  safe  in  his  study  he  had  formed  of  the  letters 
of  her  name !  In  each  memory  of  her  he  felt  the  fresh 
assault  of  a  new  and  tireless  foe — the  love  which  he 
must  deny. 

Until  their  meeting  his  moral  existence  had  been 
strangely  without  struggle.  "When  at  a  single  blow  he 
had  cut  away,  root  and  branch,  from  his  old  life,  he  had 
left  behind  him  its  vices  and  temptations.  That  life  had 
been,  as  he  himself  had  dimly  realized  at  the  time,  a 
phase,  not  a  quality,  of  his  development.  It  had  known 
no  profound  emotions.  The  first  deep  feeling  of  his 
experience  had  come  with  that  college  catastrophe  which 
had  brought  the  abrupt  change  to  all  his  habits  of  liv 
ing.  He  did  not  know  that  the  impulse  which  then  drew 
him  to  the  Church  was  the  gravitational  force  of  an 

76 


AFTER   A   YEAR 

austere  ancestry,  itself  an  inheritance  from  a  long  line 
of  sectarian  progenitors — an  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
among  them — reaching  from  Colony  times,  when  King 
George  had  sent  the  first  Sanderson,  a  virile,  sport-lov 
ing  churchman,  to  the  tobacco  emoluments  of  the  Old, 
Dominion.  He  did  not  know  that  in  the  reaction  the 
pendulum  of  his  nature  was  swinging  back  along  an 
old  groove  in  obeisance  to  the  subtle  call  of  blood. 

In  his  new  life,  problems  were  already  solved  for  him. 
He  had  only  to  drift  with  the  current  of  tradition, 
whereon  was  smooth  sailing.  And  so  he  had  drifted  till 
that  evening  when  "Satan  Sanderson,"  dead  and  done 
and  buried,  had  risen  in  his  grave-clothes  to  mock  him 
in  the  person  of  Hugh.  Each  hour  since  then  had  sensi 
tized  him,  had  put  him  through  exercises  of  self-con 
trol.  And  then,  with  that  kiss  of  Jessica's,  had  come  the 
sudden  illumination  that  had  made  him  curse  the  work 
of  his  hands — that  had  shown  him  what  had  dawned 
for  him,  too  late ! 

Outcast  and  criminal  as  he  was,  castaway,  who  had 
stolen  a  bank's  money  and  a  woman's  love,  Hugh  was 
still  }ier  husband.  Hugh's  wife — what  could  she  be  to 
him?  And  this  fevered  conflict  was  shot  through  with 
yet  another  pang ;  for  the  waking  smart  of  compunction 
which  had  risen  at  Jessica's  bitter  cry,  "You  helped  to 

77 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

make  him  what  he  has  become !"  would  not  down.  That 
cry  had  shown  him,  in  one  clarifying  instant,  the  follies 
and  delinquencies  of  his  early  career  reduplicated  as 
through  the  facets  of  a  crystal,  and  in  the  polarized  light 
of  conscience,  Hugh — loafer,  gambler  and  thief — stood 
as  the  type  and  sign  of  an  enduring  accusation. 

But  if  the  recollection  of  that  wedding-day  and  its 
aftermath  stalked  always  with  him — if  that  kiss  had 
seemed  to  cling  again  and  again  to  his  lips  as  he  sat  in 
the  quiet  of  his  study — no  one  guessed.  He  seldom 
played  his  violin  now,  but  he  had  shown  no  outward 
sign.  As  time  went  on,  he  had  become  no  less  brilliant, 
though  more  inscrutable;  no  less  popular,  save  perhaps 
to  the  parish  heresy-hunter  for  whom  he  had  never  cared 
a  straw.  But  beneath  the  surface  a  great  change  had 
come  to  Harry  Sanderson. 

To-night,  as  he  wended  his  way  past  the  house  in  the 
aspens,  through  the  clatter  and  commotion  of  the  even 
ing,  there  was  a  kind  of  glaze  over  his  whole  face — a 
shell  of  melancholy. 

Judge  Conwell  drove  by  in  his  dog-cart,  with  the 
superintendent  of  the  long,  low  hospital.  The  man  of 
briefs  looked  keenly  at  the  handsome  face  on  the  pave 
ment.  "Seems  the  worse  for  wear,"  he  remarked  scnten- 
tiously. 

78 


AFTER   A   YEAR 

The  surgeon  nodded  wisely.  "That's  the  trouble  with 
most  of  you  professional  people,"  he  said;  "you  think 
too  much  I"  The  judge  clucked  to  his  mare  and  drove 
on  at  a  smart  trot. 

The  friendly,  critical  eye  clove  to  the  fact;  it  dis 
cerned  the  mental  state  of  which  gloom,  depression  and 
insomnia  were  but  the  physical  reagents.  Harry  had 
lately  felt  disquieting  symptoms  of  strain — irritable 
weakness,  fitful  repose,  a  sense  of  vague,  mysterious  mes 
sages  in  a  strange  language  never  before  heard.  He  had 
found  that  the  long  walks  no  longer  brought  the  old  re 
action — that  even  the  swift  rush  of  his  motor-car,  as  it 
bore  him  through  the  dusk  of  an  evening,  gave  him  of 
late  only  a  momentary  relief.  To-morrow  began  his 
summer  vacation,  and  he  had  planned  a  month's  pedes 
trian  outing  through  the  wide  ranch  valleys  and  the 
further  ranges,  and  this  should  set  him  up  again. 

Now,  however,  as  he  walked  along,  he  was  bitterly  ab 
sorbed  in  thoughts  other  than  his  own  needs.  He  passed 
more  than  one  acquaintance  with  a  stare  of  non-recog 
nition.  One  of  these  was  the  bishop,  who  turned  an  in 
stant  to  look  after  him.  The  bishop  had  seen  that  look 
frequently  of  late,  and  had  wondered  if  it  betokened 
physical  illness  or  mental  unquiet.  More  than  once  he 
had  remembered  with  a  sigh  the  old  whisper  of  Harry 

79 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

Sanderson's  early  wildness.  But  he  knew  youth  and  its 
lapses,  and  he  liked  and  respected  him.  Only  two  days 
before,  on  the  second  anniversary  of  Harry's  ordination, 
he  had  given  him  for  his  silken  watch-guard  a  little 
gold  cross  engraved  with  his  name,  and  containing 
the  date.  The  bishop  had  seen  his  gift  sparkling  against 
Harry's  waistcoat  as  he  passed.  He  walked  on  with  a 
puzzled  frown. 

The  bishop  was  pursy  and  prosy,  conventional  and 
somewhat  stereotyped  in  ideas,  but  he  was  full  of  the 
milk  of  human  kindness.  Now  he  promised  himself  that 
when  the  hour's  errand  on  which  he  was  hastening  was 
done,  he  would  stop  at  the  study  and  if  he  found  Harry 
in,  would  have  a  quiet  chat  with  him.  Perhaps  he  could 
put  his  ringer  on  the  trouble. 

At  a  crossing,  the  sight  of  a  knot  of  people  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  street  awoke  Harry  from  his  ab 
straction.  They  had  gathered  around  a  peripatetic 
street  preacher,  who  was  holding  forth  in  a  shrill  voice. 
Beside  him,  on  a  short  pole,  hung  a  dripping  gasoline 
flare,  and  the  hissing  flame  lit  his  bare  head,  his  thin 
features,  his  long  hair,  and  his  bony  hands  moving  in 
vehement  gestures.  A  small  melodeon  on  four  wheels 
stood  beside  him,  and  on  its  front  was  painted  in  glaring 
white  letters: 

80 


AFTER   A   YEAR 


« 

"Suffer  me 
that  I  have 

HALLELUJAH  JONES." 

that  I  may  speak; 
spoken,  mock  on" 

and  after 
Job,  xxi,  3 

From  over  the  way  Harry  gazed  at  the  tall,  stooping 
figure,  pitilessly  betrayed  by  the  thin  alpaca  coat,  at 
the  ascetic  face  burned  a  brick-red  from  exposure  to 
wind  and  sun,  at  the  flashing  eyes,  the  impassioned 
earnestness.  He  paused  at  the  curb  and  listened  curi 
ously,  for  Hallelujah  Jones  with  his  evangelism  mingled 
a  spice  of  the  rancor  of  the  socialist.  In  his  thinking, 
the  rich  and  the  wicked  were  mingled  inextricably  in 
the  great  chastisement.  He  was  preaching  now  from  his 
favorite  text:  Woe  to  tUem  that  are  at  ease  in  Zion. 

Harry  smiled  grimly.  He  had  always  been  "at  ease 
in  Zion."  He  wore  sumptuous  clothes — the  ruby  in  his 
ring  would  bring  what  this  plodding  exhorter  would 
call  a  fortune.  At  this  moment,  Hede,  his  dapper  Finn 
chauffeur,  was  polishing  the  motor-car  for  him  to  take 
his  cool  evening  spin.  That  very  afternoon  he  had  put 
into  the  little  safe  in  the  chapel  study  two  thousand 
dollars  in  gold,  which  he  had  drawn,  a  part  for  his 
charities  and  quarterly  payments  and  a  part  to  take  with 

81 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

him  for  the  exigencies  of  his  trip.  The  street  evangelist 
over  there,  preaching  paradise  and  perdition  to  the 
grinning  yokels,  often  needed  a  square  meal,  and  was 
lucky  if  he  always  knew  where  he  would  sleep.  Yet  did 
the  Reverend  Henry  Sanderson,  after  all,  get  more  out 
of  life  than  Hallelujah  Jones  ? 

The  thread  of  his  thought  broke.  The  bareheaded 
figure  had  ended  his  harangue.  The  eternal  fires  were 
banked  for  a  time,  while,  seated  on  a  camp-stool  at  his 
crazy  melodeon,  he  proceeded  to  transport  his  audience 
to  the  heavenly  meads  of  the  New  Jerusalem.  He  began 
a  "gospel  song"  that  everybody  knew : 

"I  saw  a  wayworn  traveller, 

The  sun  was  bending  low. 
He  overtopped  the  mountain 

And  reached  the  vale  below. 
He  saw  the  Golden  City, 

His  everlasting  home, 
And  shouted  as  he  journeyed, 

'Deliverance  will  come! 

"'Palms  of  Victory, 
Crowns  of  Glory! 
Palms  of  Victory,  I  shall  wear!' " 

The  voice  was  weather-cracked,  and  the  canvas  bellows 
of  the  instrument  coughed  and  wheezed,  but  the  music 
was  infectious,  and  half  from  overflowing  spirits,  and 


AFTER   A   YEAE 

half  from  the  mere  swing  of  the  melody,,  the  crowd 
chanted  the  refrain : 

"'Palms  of  Victory; 
Crowns  of  Glory! 
Palms  of  Victory,  I  shall  wear!'  " 

Two,  three  verses  of  the  old-fashioned  hymn  he  sang, 
and  after  each  verse  more  of  the  bystanders — some  in 
real  earnestness,  some  in  impious  hilarity — shouted  in 
the  chorus : 

"'Palms  of  Victory,  I  shall  wear!'" 

Harry  walked  on  in  a  brown  study,  the  refrain  ringing 
through  his  brain.  There  came  to  him  the  memory  of 
Hugh's  old  sneer  as  he  looked  at  his  book-shelves — 
whereon  Nietzsche  and  Pascal  sat  cheek  by  jowl  with 
Theron  Ware  and  Robert  Elsmere — "I  wonder  how 
much  of  all  that  you  really  believe !"  How  much  did  he 
really  believe  ?  "I  used  to  read  Thomas  a  Kempis  then," 
he  said  to  himself,  "and  Jonathan  Edwards ;  now  I  read 
Renan  and  the  Origins  of  Christian  Mythology!" 

At  the  chapel-gate  lounged  his  chauffeur,  awaiting  or 
ders. 

"Bring  the  car  round,  Hede,"  said  Harry,  "and  I 
shan't  need  you  after  that  to-night.  I'll  drive  her  my 
self.  You  can  meet  me  at  the  garage." 

83 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

Hede,  the  dapper,  good-looking  Scandinavian,  touched 
his  glossy  straw  hat  respectfully.  It  was  a  piece  of  luck 
that  his  master  had  not  planned  a  motor  trip  instead  of 
a  tour  afoot.  For  a  month,  after  to-night,  his  time  was 
his  own.  His  quarter's  wages  were  in  his  pocket,  and 
he  slapped  the  wad  with  satisfaction  as  he  sauntered  off 
to  the  bowling-alley. 

The  study  was  pitch-dark,  and  Rummy  halted  on  the 
threshold  with  a  low,  ominous  growl  as  Harry  fumbled 
for  the  electric  switch.  As  he  found  and  pressed  it  and 
the  place  flooded  with  light,  he  saw  a  figure  there — the 
figure  of  a  man  who  had  been  sitting  alone — beside  the 
empty  hearth,  who  rose,  shrinking  back  from  the  sudden 
brilliancy. 

It  was  Hugh  Stires. 


84 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  GAME 

Harry  Sanderson  stared  at  the  apparition  with  a 
strange  feeling,  like  rising  from  the  dead.  There  flashed 
into  his  mind  the  reflection  he  had  seen  once  in  the 
mirror  above  the  mantel — the  face  on  which  fell  the 
amber  ray  from  the  chapel  window,  shining  through  the 
figure  of  the  unrepentant  thief — the  face  that  had 
seemed  so  like  his  own ! 

The  likeness,  however,  was  not  so  startling  now.  The 
aristocratic  features  were  ravaged  like  a  nicked  blade. 
Dissipation,  exposure,  shame  and  unbridled  passion  had 
each  set  its  separate  seal  upon  the  handsome  counte 
nance.  Hugh's  clothes  were  shabby-genteel  and  the  old 
slinking  grace  of  wearing  them  was  gone.  A  thin  beard 
covered  his  chin,  and  his  shifty  look,  as  he  turned  it 
first  on  Harry  and  then  nervously  over  his  shoulder,  had 
in  it  a  hunted  dread,  a  dogging  terror,  constant  and 
indefinable.  From  bad  to  worse  had  been  a  swift  descent 
for  Hugh  Stires. 

The  wave  of  feeling  ebbed.  Harry  drew  the  window- 
85 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

curtains,  swung  a  shade  before  the  light,  and  motioned 
to  the  chair. 

"Sit  down,"  he  said. 

Hugh  looked  his  old  friend  in  the  face  a  moment, 
then  his  unsteady  glance  fell  to  the  white  carnation  in 
his  lapel  as  he  said :  "I  suppose  you  wonder  why  I  have 
come  here." 

Harry  did  not  answer  the  implied  question.  His 
scrutiny  was  deliberate,  critical  and  inquiring.  "What 
have  you  been  doing  the  last  year  ?"  he  asked. 

"A  little  of  everything,"  replied  Hugh.  "I  ran  a 
bucket-shop  with  Moreau  in  Sacramento  for  a  while. 
Then  I  went  over  in  the  mining  country.  I  took  up  a 
claim  at  Smoky  Mountain — that's  worth  something,  or 
may  be  sometime." 

"Why  did  you  leave  it?" 

Hugh  touched  his  parched  lips  with  his  tongue — again 
that  nervous,  sidelong  look,  that  fearful  glance  over  his 
shoulder. 

"I  had  no  money  to  work  it.  I  had  to  live.  Besides, 
I'm  tired  of  the  whole  thing." 

The  backward  glance,  the  look  of  dread,  were  tangible 
tokens.  Harry  translated  them : 

"You  are  not  telling  the  truth,"  he  said  shortly. 
"What  have  you  done?" 

86 


THE    GAME 

Hugh  flinched,  but  he  made  sullen  answer :  "Nothing. 
What  should  I  have  done  ?" 

"That  is  what  I  am  now  inquiring  of  myself,"  said 
Harry.  "Your  face  is  a  book  for  any  one  to  read.  I  see 
things  written  on  it,  Hugh — things  that  tell  a  story  of 
wrong-doing.  You  are  afraid/' 

Hugh  shivered  under  the  regard.  Did  his  face  really 
tell  so  much  ? 

"I  don't  care  to  be  seen  in  town,"  he  said.  "You 
wouldn't  either,  probably,  under  the  circumstances." 
His  gaze  dropped  to  his  frayed  coat-sleeve.  In  his  craven 
fear  of  something  that  he  dared  not  name  even  to  him 
self,  and  in  his  wretched  need,  he  remembered  a  night 
once  before,  when  he  had  sidled  into  town  drunken  and 
soiled — to  a  luxurious  room,  a  refreshing  bath,  clean 
linen  and  a  welcome.  Abject  drops  of  self-pity  started  in 
his  eyes. 

"You're  the  only  one  in  the  world  I  dared  come  to," 
he  said  miserably.  "I've  walked  ten  miles  to-day,  for  I 
haven't  a  red  cent  in  my  pocket.  Nor  even  decent 
clothes,"  he  ended. 

"That  can  be  partly  remedied,"  said  Harry  after  a 
pause.  He  took  a  dark  coat  from  its  hook  and  tossed  it 
to  him.  "Put  that  on,"  he  said.  "You  needn't  return  it." 

Hugh  caught  the  garment.    In  another  moment  he 


SATAN    SANDEESON 

had  exchanged  it  for  the  one  he  wore,  and  was  emptying 
the  old  coat's  pockets. 

"Don't  sneak !"  said  Harry  with  sudden  contempt. 
"Don't  you  suppose  I  know  a  deck  of  cards  when  I  see 
it?" 

The  thin  scar  on  Hugh's  brow  reddened.  He  thrust 
into  his  pocket  the  pasteboards  he  had  made  an  instinc 
tive  move  to  conceal  and  buttoned  the  coat  around  him. 
It  fitted  sufficiently.  His  eyes  avoided  the  well-set  figure 
standing  in  white  negligee  shirt,  norfolk  jacket  and 
leather  belt.  As  they  had  been  wont  to  do  in  the  com 
fortable  past,  they  fixed  themselves  on  the  little  safe. 

"Look  here,  Harry,"  he  began,  "you  were  a  good  fel 
low  in  the  old  days.  I'm  sorry  I  never  paid  you  the 
money  I  borrowed.  I  would  have,  but  for — what  hap 
pened.  But  you  won't  go  back  on  me  now,  will  you  ?  I 
want  to  get  out  of  the  country  and  begin  over  again 
somewhere.  Will  you  loan  me  the  money  to  do  it  ?" 

Hugh  was  eager  and  voluble  now.  The  man  to  whom 
he  appealed  was  his  forlorn  hope.  He  had  come  with  no 
intention  of  throwing  himself  upon  his  father's  mercy. 
He  had  wished  to  see  anybody  in  the  world  but  him. 
In  his  urgent  need,  he  had  had  a  wild  thought  of  ap 
pealing  to  Jessica,  or  at  worst  to  get  speech  with  Blake, 
the  old  butler  who  many  a  time  of  old  had  hidden  his 


THE    GAME 

backslidings  from  the  parental  eye.  But  he  had  found 
the  white  house  in  the  aspens  closed  and  desolate,,  the 
servants  gone.  Harry  Sanderson  was  his  last  resort. 

"If  you  will,  Fll  never  forget  it,  Harry!"  he  cried. 
"Never,  the  longest  day  I  live !  Fll  use  every  dollar  of 
it  just  as  I  say !  I  will,  on  my  honor !" 

But  the  sight  of  the  poker  deck  had  been  steel  to 
Harry's  soul.  It  had  touched  an  excoriated  spot  that  in 
the  past  months  had  grown  as  sensitive  as  an  exposed 
nerve.  The  pictured  squares  were  the  ironic  badge  of 
Hugh's  incorrigibility.  They  had  ruined  him,  and  the 
ruin  had  broken  his  father's  heart,  and  wrecked  the  life 
of  Jessica  Holme.  And  out  of  this  havoc  a  popular 
rector  named  Harry  Sanderson  had  emerged  pitifully 
the  worse. 

"Honor!"  he  said.  "Have  you  enough  to  swear  by? 
You  are  what  you  are  because  you  are  a  bad  egg !  You 
were  born  a  gentleman,  but  you  choose  to  be  a  rogue. 
Do  you  know  the  meaning  of  the  word  honor,  or  right, 
or  justice?  Have  you  a  single  purpose  of  mind  which 
isn't  crooked?" 

"You're  just  like  the  rest,  then,"  Hugh  retorted. 
"Just  because  I  did  that  one  thing,  you'll  give  me  no 
more  chance.  Yet  the  first  thing  I  did  with  that  money 
was  to  square  myself.  I  paid  every  debt  of  honor  I  had. 

89 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

That's  why  I'm  in  the  hole  now.  But  I  get  no  credit 
for  it,  even  from  you.  I  wish  you  could  put  yourself  in 
my  place  I" 

Harry  had  been  looking  steadily  at  the  sallow  face 
with  its  hoof-print  of  the  satyr,  not  seeing  it,  but  hear 
ing  his  own  voice  say  to  Jessica:  "I  was  my  brother's 
keeper!  I  see  it  now."  And  out  of  the  distance,  it 
seemed,  his  voice  answered : 

"Put  myself  in  your  place !  I  wish  I  could !  I  wish 
to  God  I  could !" 

The  exclamation  was  involuntary,  automatic,  the  cu 
mulative  expression  of  every  throe  of  conscience  Harry 
had  endured  since  then,  the  voice  of  that  remorse  that 
had  cried  insistently  for  reparation,  dinning  in  his  ears 
the  fateful  question  that  God  asked  of  Cain !  Suddenly 
a  whirl  of  rage  seized  him,  unmeasured,  savage,  mali 
cious.  He  had  despised  Hugh,  now  he  hated  him ;  hated 
him  because  he  was  Jessica's  husband,  and  more  than  all, 
because  he  was  the  symbol  of  his  own  self-abasement.  A 
dare-devil  side  of  the  old  Satan  Sanderson  that  he  had 
chained  and  barred,  rose  up  and  took  him  by  the  throat. 
He  struck  the  oak  wainscoting  with  his  fist,  feeling  a 
red  mist  grow  before  his  eyes. 

"So  you  paid  every  'debt  of  honor'  you  had,  eh  ?  You 
acknowledge  a  gamester's  honor,  but  not  the  obligation 

90 


THE    GAME 

of  right  action  between  man  and  man !  Very  well !  Give 
me  that  pack  of  cards.  You  want  money — here  it  is  !" 

He  swiftly  turned  the  clicking  combination  of  the 
safe,  wrenched  open  the  door  and  took  out  two  heavy 
canvas  bags.  He  snapped  the  cord  from  the  neck  of  one 
of  these  and  a  ringing  stream  of  double-eagles  swept 
jingling  on  the  table.  He  dipped  his  hand  in  the  yellow 
pile.  A  thought  mad  as  the  hoofs  of  runaway  horses 
was  careening  through  his  brain.  He  felt  an  odd  light 
ness  of  mind,  a  tense  tingling  of  every  nerve  and  muscle. 

"Here  is  two  thousand  dollars ! — yours,  if  you  win  it ! 
For  you  shall  play  for  it,  you  gambler  who  pays  his 
debts  of  'honor*  and  no  other !  You  shall  play  fair  and 
straight,  if  you  never  play  again !" 

Hugh  gazed  at  Harry  in  a  startled  way.  This  was  not 
the  ministerial  Harry  Sanderson  he  had  known — this 
gauche  figure,  with  the  white  infuriate  face,  the  spark 
ling  eyes  and  the  strange,  veiled  look.  This  reminded 
him  of  the  reckless  spirit  of  his  college  days,  that  he 
had  patterned  after  and  had  stood  in  awe  of.  Only  he 
had  never  seen  him  look  so  then.  Could  Harry  be  in 
earnest?  Hugh  glanced  from  him  to  the  pile  of  coin 
and  back  again.  His  fingers  itched. 

"How  can  I  play/'  he  said,  "when  you  know  very 
well  I  haven't  a  sou  marfcee  ?" 

91 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

Harry  stuffed  the  gold  back  into  the  bag.  He 
snatched  the  cards  from  Hugh's  hand  and  a  box  of 
waxen  envelope  wafers  from  his  desk.  There  was  a 
strange  light  in  his  eye,  a  tremor  in  his  fingers. 

"It  is  I  who  play  with  money!"  he  said.  "My  gold 
against  your  counters!  Each  of  those  hundred  red 
disks  represents  a  day  of  your  life — a  day,  do  you  un 
derstand? — a  red  day  of  your  sin!  A  day  of  yours 
against  a  double-eagle !  What  you  win  you  keep.  But 
for  every  counter  I  win,  you  shall  pay  me  one  straight, 
white  day,  a  clean  day,  lived  for  decency  and  for  the 
right!" 

He  was  the  old  Satan  Sanderson  now,  with  the  blood 
bubbling  in  his  veins — the  Satan  Sanderson  who  could 
"talk  like  Bob  Ingersoll  or  an  angel,"  as  the  college 
saying  was — the  cool,  daring,  enigmatical  Abbot  of  The 
Saints,  primed  for  any  audacity.  It  was  the  old  char 
acter  again,  but  curiously  changed.  The  new  overlaid 
it.  Under  the  spur  of  some  driving  impulse  the  will  was 
travelling  along  a  disused  and  preposterous  channel  to  a 
paramount  end. 

Hugh's  eyes  were  fastened  on  the  gold  in  Harry's 
fingers.  Two  thousand  dollars !  If  luck  came  his  way 
he  could  go  far  on  that — far  enough  to  escape  the  name 
less  terror  that  pursued  him  in  every  shadow.  Money 

92 


THE    GAME 

against  red  wafers  ?  Why,  it  was  plenty  if  he  won,  and 
if  he  lost  he  had  staked  nothing.  What  a  fool  Harry 
was ! 

Harry  saw  the  shrewd,  calculating  look  that  came  to 
his  eyes.  He  caught  his  wrist. 

"Not  here!"  he  said  hoarsely.  He  flung  open  the 
chapel  door  and  pushed  him  inside.  He  seized  one  of 
the  altar  candles,  lit  it  with  a  match  and  stuck  it  upright 
in  its  own  wax  on  the  small  communion  table  that  stood 
just  inside  the  altar-rail,  with  the  cards,  the  red  wafers 
and  the  bags  of  coin.  He  dragged  two  chairs  forward. 

"Now,"  he  said  in  a  strained  voice,  "put  up  your  hand 
— your  right  hand — and  swear  before  this  altar,  on  the 
gambler's  honor  you  boast  of,  win  or  lose,  to  abide  by 
this  game!" 

Hugh  shrank.  He  was  superstitious.  The  calculating 
look  had  fled.  He  glanced  half  fearfully  about  him — at 
Harry's  white  face — at  the  high  altar  with  its  vases  of 
August  lilies — at  the  great  rose-window,  now  a  mass  of 
white,  opaque  blotches  on  which  the  three  black  crosses 
stood  out  with  weird  distinctness — at  the  lurking,  un- 
lighted  shadows  in  the  corners.  He  looked  longingly  at 
the  gold,  shining  yellow  in  the  candle-light.  It  fas 
cinated  him. 

He  lifted  his  hand.    It  was  trembling. 
93 


SATAN   SANDBBSON 

"I  swear  I  will  \"  he  said.  "I'll  stand  by  the  cards, 
Harry,  and  for  every  day  you  win,  I'll  walk  a  chalk  line 
— so  help  me  God!" 

Harry  Sanderson  sat  down.  He  emptied  one  of  the 
bags  at  his  elbow,  and  pushed  the  box  of  wafers  across 
the  table.  He  shuffled  the  cards  swiftly  and  cut. 

"Your  deal !"  he  said. 


94 


CHAPTER  XI 

HALLELUJAH  JONES  TAKES  A  HAND 

Hallelujah  Jones  had  finished  his  labor  for  the  night. 
The  crowd  had  grown  restive,  and  finally  melted  away, 
and,  his  audience  gone,  he  folded  the  camp-stool,  turned 
off  the  gasoline  flare,  shut  down  the  lid  of  his  melodeon, 
and  trundled  it  up  the  street.  A  goodly  number  of  cop 
pers  had  rattled  into  his  worn  hat,  and  to  the  workman 
belonged  his  wage.  There  was  a  little  settlement  on  the 
river,  a  handful  of  miles  away,  and  the  trudge  under 
the  stars  would  be  cool  and  pleasant.  If  he  grew  tired, 
there  was  his  blanket  strapped  atop  the  melodeon,  and 
the  open  night  was  dry  and  balmy. 

As  he  pushed  up  the  street  he  came  to  a  great  motor 
car  standing  at  the  curb  under  the  maples.  There  was 
no  one  in  it,  but  somewhere  in  its  interior  a  muffled 
whirring  throb  beat  evenly  like  a  double,  metallic  heart. 
He  stopped  and  regarded  it  inquisitively;  a  rich  man's 
property,  to  be  sure! 

He  looked  up — it  was  at  the  gate  of  the  chapel.  No 
doubt  it  belonged  to  the  fashionable  rector  who  had 
been  pointed  out  to  him  on  the  street  the  day  before. 

95 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

He  remembered  the  young,  handsome  face,  the  stylish 
broadcloth.  He  thought  he  would  have  liked  to  lean 
over  the  Reverend  Henry  Sanderson's  shoulder  and  lay 
his  finger  on  a  text :  How  hardly  shall  a  rich  man  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  Heaven.  Yet  it  was  a  beautiful  edi 
fice  that  wealth  had  built  there  for  Christ!  He  saw 
dimly  the  stone  angel  standing  in  the  porch,  and,  leav 
ing  his  melodeon  on  the  pavement,  entered  the  gate  to 
examine  it. 

He  noticed  now  a  dim  flicker  that  lit  one  corner  of  the 
great  rose-window.  Moving  softly  over  the  cropped 
grass,  he  approached,  tilted  one  of  the  hinged  panels, 
and  peered  in.  Two  men  were  there,  behind  the  altar- 
railing,  seated  at  the  communion  table. 

Hallelujah  Jones  started  back.  There  on  the  table 
was  a  bag  of  coin,  cards  and  counters.  They  were  play 
ing — he  heard  the  fall  of  the  cards  on  the  hard  wood, 
saw  the  gleam  of  a  gold-piece,  the  smear  of  melted  wax 
marring  the  polished  oak.  The  reddish  glow  of  the 
candle  was  reflected  on  the  players'  faces.  Well  he  knew 
the  devil's  tools:  had  he  not  sung  and  exhorted  in 
Black  Hill  mining  camps  and  prayed  in  frontier  faro 
"joints?"  They  were  gambling!  At  God's  holy  altar, 
and  on  Christ's  table !  Who  would  dare  such  a  profana 
tion? 

96 


HALLELUJAH  JONES  TAKES  A  HAND 

He  craned  his  neck.  Suddenly  he  gave  a  smothered 
cry.  The  player  facing  him  he  recognized — it  was  the 
rector  himself!  He  bent  forward,  gazing  with  a  tense 
and  horrified  curiosity. 

In  that  hazard  within  the  altar-rail  strange  forces 
were  contending,  whose  meaning  he  could  not  fathom. 
Between  the  two  men  who  played,  not  a  word  had  been 
spoken  save  those  demanded  by  the  exigencies  of  the 
game.  Harry  had  seemed  to  act  almost  automatically, 
but  his  mind  was  working  clearly,  his  hand  was  firm  and 
cool  as  the  blossom  on  his  coat;  he  made  his  play  with 
that  old  steely  nonchalance  with  which,  once  upon  a 
time,  he  had  staked — and  lost — so  often.  But  in  his 
brain  a  thousand  spindles  were  whirring,  a  maze  of  re 
fractory  images  was  rushing  past  him  into  an  eddying 
phantasmagoria,  A  kind  of  exaltation  possessed  him. 
He  was  putting  his  past  into  the  dice-box  to  redeem  a 
soul  in  pawn,  fighting  the  devil  with  his  own  fire,  gam 
bling  for  God ! 

Five  times,  ten  times,  the  cards  had  changed  hands, 
and  with  every  deal  he  lost.  The  gold  disks  had  slipped 
steadily  across  the  table.  But  Harry  had  seemed  to  be 
looking  beyond  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  jettons  and  the 
pale  face  opposite  him  that  gloated  over  its  yellow  pile. 
Though  that  pile  grew  larger  and  larger,  Harry's  face 

97 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

had  never  changed.  Hugh's  was  the  shaking  hand  when 
he  discarded,  the  convulsed  features  when  he  scanned 
his  draw,  the  desperate  anxiety  when  for  a  moment  for 
tune  seemed  to  waver.  He  had  never  in  his  life  had 
such  luck !  He  swept  his  winnings  into  his  pockets  with 
a  discordant  laugh  as  he  noted  that,  of  the  contents  of 
the  opened  bag,  Harry  had  but  one  double-eagle  re 
maining. 

Harry  paused  an  instant.  He  snapped  the  little  gold 
cross  he  wore  from  its  silken  tether  and  set  it  upright 
by  him  on  the  table. 

His  hand  won,  and  the  next,  and  the  next.  Hugh 
hoarded  his  gold:  he  staked  the  red  wafers — each  one 
a  day !  He  had  won  almost  a  thousand  dollars,  but  the 
second  bag  had  not  yet  been  opened,  and  the  vampire 
intoxication  was  running  molten-hot  in  his  veins.  The 
untouched  bag  drew  him  as  the  magnet  mountain  drew 
the  adventurous  Sindbad — he  could  have  snatched  it  in 
his  eagerness. 

But  the  luck  had  changed;  his  red  counters  dimin 
ished,  melted;  he  would  soon  have  to  draw  on  his  real 
winnings.  Cold  beads  of  sweat  broke  on  his  forehead. 

Neither  had  heard  the  creak  of  the  rose-window  as 
the  hinged  panel  drew  back.  Neither  saw  the  face 
pressed  against  the  aperture.  Neither  guessed  the  wild 

98 


HALLELUJAH  JONES  TAKES  A  HAND 

and  terrible   thoughts  that  were  raging  through   the 
mind  of  the  solitary  watcher  as  he  peered  and  peered. 

This  minister !  This  corrupt,  ungodly  shepherd !  He 
could  be  neither  hanged  nor  put  in  jail,  yet  he  com 
mitted  a  crime  for  which  hell  itself  scarce  held  adequate 
penalty  and  punishment!  The  street  preacher's  eyes 
dilated,  the  hand  that  held  the  panel  trembled,  spots 
of  unhealthy  white  sprang  into  his  burning  cheeks. 
The  flaring  candles — the  table  with  its  carven  legend, 
This  Do  In  Remembrance  of  Me — the  little  gold  cross, 
set  there,  it  seemed  to  him,  in  a  satanic  derision!  It 
was  the  evil  the  Apostle  Paul  wrestled  against,  of 
"wicked  spirits  in  high  places/'  It  was  sacrilege!  It 
was  blasphemy !  It  was  the  Arch-Fiend  laughing,  mak 
ing  a  mock  of  God's  own  altar  with  the  guilty  pleasures 
of  the  pit — a  very  sacrament  of  the  damned ! 

Scarce  knowing  what  he  did,  he  closed  the  panel 
softly  and  ran  across  the  chapel  lawn.  On  the  pave 
ment  outside  he  met  a  man  approaching.  It  was  the 
bishop,  on  his  way  to  his  contemplated  chat  with  Harry 
Sanderson.  The  excited  evangelist  did  not  know  the 
man,  but  his  eye  caught  the  ministerial  dress,  the  plain, 
sturdy  piety  of  the  face.  In  his  zeal  he  saw  an  instru 
ment  to  his  hand.  He  grasped  the  bishop's  arm. 

"Quick!    Quick!"  he  gasped.    "There's  devil's  work 
99 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

doing  in  there  !  Come  and  see !"  He  fairly  pulled  him 
inside  the  gate. 

The  puzzled  bishop  saw  the  intense  excitement  of  the 
other's  demeanor.  He  saw  the  faint  glow  in  the  corner 
of  the  rose-window.  Were  there  thieves  after  the  altar- 
plate  ? 

He  shook  off  the  eager  hand  that  was  drawing  him 
toward  the  window.  "Not  there — come  this  way!"  he 
said,  and  hurried  toward  the  porch.  He  tried  the  chapel 
door — it  was  fast.  He  had  a  key  to  this  in  his  pocket. 
He  inserted  it  with  caution,  opened  the  door  noiselessly 
and  went  in,  the  street  preacher  at  his  heels. 

What  the  bishop  saw  was  photographed  instanta 
neously  on  his  mind  in  fiery,  indelible  colors.  It  ate 
into  his  soul  like  hot  iron  into  quivering  flesh,  searing 
itself  upon  his  memory.  It  was  destined  to  haunt  his 
sleep  for  many  months  afterward,  a  phantom  of  regret 
and  shame.  He  was,  in  his  way,  a  man  of  the  world, 
travelled,  sophisticated,  acquainted  with  sin  in  unex 
pected  forms  and  places.  But  this  sight,  in  all  its 
coarse  suggestion  of  license,  in  its  harrowing  implica 
tion  of  hidden  vice  and  hypocrisy,  was  damning  and 
appalling.  The  evangelist  of  the  pave  had  been  horri 
fied,  shocked  to  word  and  action ;  the  bishop  was  frozen, 
inarticulate,  impaled.  For  any  evil  in  Hugh  Stires  he 

100 


HALLELUJAH   JONES    TAKES    A    HAND 

was  prepared — since  the  forgery.  But  Hugh's  com 
panion  now  was  the  man  whom  he  himself  had  ordained 
and  anointed,  by  the  laying  on  of  hands,  with  the  chrism 
of  his  holy  ministry. 

It  was  sin,  then,  that  had  set  the  look  he  had  mar 
velled  at  in  Harry  Sanderson's  face — sin,  flaunting, 
mocking  and  terrible!  He  whom  the  church  had  or 
dained  to  shepherd  its  little  ones,  to  comfort  its  afflicted, 
to  give  in  marriage  and  to  bless,  to  hold  before  the  world 
the  white  and  stainless  banner — a  renegade,  polluting 
the  sanctuary !  A  priest  apostate,  surprised  in  a  hideous 
revel,  gambling,  as  the  Eoman  soldiers  gambled  for  the 
seamless  garment,  at  the  foot  of  the  cross!  An  irre 
pressible  exclamation  burst  from  his  lips. 

With  the  sound  both  men  at  the  table  started  to  their 
feet.  Hugh,  with  a  single  glance  behind  him,  uttering 
a  wild  laugh,  leaped  the  railing,  dashed  through  the 
study,  and  vanished  into  the  night;  Harry,  as  though 
suddenly  turned  to  stone,  stood  staring  at  the  accusa 
tory  figure,  with  the  eager  form  of  the  evangelist  be 
hind  it.  It  was  as  if  the  horror  on  the  stern,  set  face 
of  the  bishop  mirrored  itself  instantaneously  upon  his 
countenance,  his  imagination  opening  in  a  shocked, 
awed  way  to  the  concentrated  light  of  feeling,  so  that 
he  stood  bewildered  in  the  paralysis  of  a  like  dismay. 

101 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

To  the  bishop  it  seemed  the  attitude  of  guilt  detected. 

:What  was  Harry  Sanderson  thinking,  as,  under  that 
speechless  regard,  he  mechanically  gathered  the  scat 
tered  cards  and  lifted  the  little  cross  and  the  unopened 
bag  of  double-eagles  from  the  table?  Where  was  the 
odd  excitement,  the  strange  exaltation  that  had  pos 
sessed  him?  The  spindles  in  his  brain  had  stilled,  and 
an  algid  calm  had  succeeded,  as  abrupt  as  the  quiet, 
deadly  assurance  with  which  his  mind  now  saw  the  pit 
into  which  his  own  feet  had  led  him.  The  paradoxical 
impulse  that  had  bred  this  sinister  topsyturvydom  had 
fallen  away.  The  same  judicial  Harry  Sanderson  who 
had  said  to  Jessica,  "I  was  my  brother's  keeper/' 
arraigned  and  judged  hiir.:f.f,  and  pronounced  the 
sentence  on  the  bishop's  face  conclusive,  irrefutable, 
without  the  power  of  explanation  or  appeal. 

He  blew  out  the  candle,  replaced  it  carefully  in  its 
altar  bracket,  made  shift  to  wipe  the  wax  from  the  table, 
and  slowly,  half  blindly,  and  without  a  word,  went  into 
the  study. 

The  bishop  came  forward,  drew  the  key  from  the  in 
side  of  the  study  door,  closed  it  and  locked  it  from  the 
chapel  side.  Harry  did  not  turn,  but  he  was  acutely 
conscious  of  every  sound.  He  heard  the  door  shut 
sharply,  the  harsh  grate  of  the  key  in  the  lock,  and  the 

102 


HALLELUJAH   JO^ES    TAKES    A    HAND 

sound  came  to  him  like  the  last  sentence — the  realiza 
tion  of  a  soul  on  whom  the  gate  of  the  good  closes  for 
ever. 

In  the  dark  silence  of  the  chapel  Hallelujah  Jones 
smote  his  thin  hands  together  approvingly,  as  he  fol 
lowed  the  bishop  to  the  outer  door.  There  the  older 
man  laid  his  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"Let  Mm  that  thinketh  lie  standeih"  he  said,  "take 
heed  lest  he  fall!  Let  not  this  knowledge  be  spread 
abroad  that  it  make  the  unrighteous  to  blaspheme.  When 
you  pray  for  your  own  soul  to-night,  pray  for  the  soul  of 
that  man  from  whom  God's  face  is  turned  away  I" 

Something  in  the  churchless  evangelist  bowed  to  the 
voice  of  ecclesiastical  authority.  He  went  without  a 
word. 

In  the  study  Harry  Sanderson  stood  for  a  moment 
with  the  cards  and  the  bag  of  double-eagles  in  his  hand. 
In  his  soft  shirt  and  disordered  hair,  with  his  preternat- 
urally  bright  eyes,  the  white  blossom  on  his  lapel,  and 
the  brilliant  light  upon  his  face,  he  might  have  been 
that  satin-sleeved  colonial  ancestor  of  his,  in  dissolute 
maturity,  coming  from  an  unclerical  bout  at  Loo,  two 
hundred  years  ago. 

Finally  he  put  the  cards  and  the  canvas  bag  methodi- 
103 


SATAX   SANDERSON 

cally  into  the  safe  and  closed  it.  Then  he  knelt  by  his 
desk  and  said,  clearly  and  aloud — to  that  cold  inner 
symbol  of  consciousness  in  his  soul : 

"0  God,  I  do  not  know  if  Thou  art,  as  has  been  said, 
a  seer  of  the  good  that  is  in  the  bad,  and  of  the  bad 
that  is  in  the  good,  and  a  lover  of  them  both.  But  I 
know  that  I  am  in  a  final  extremity.  I  can  no  longer 
do  my  labor  consistently  before  the  world  and  before 
Thee.  If  I  am  delivered,  it  must  be  by  some  way  of 
Thine  own  that  I  can  not  conceive,  for  I  can  not  help 
myself.  Amen." 

He  rose  to  his  feet,  mechanically  put  on  a  coat  that 
was  lying  on  a  chair — Hugh's  coat,  but  he  did  not  notice 
this — and  bareheaded  passed  out  to  the  street.  The 
motor-car  stood  there.  He  took  his  place  in  the  forward 
seat,  and  threw  on  the  power. 

Barking  joyously,  Rummy,  the  brown  spaniel,  tore 
out  of  the  gate,  but  his  master  did  not  stop.  The  little 
creature  pursued  the  moving  car,  made  a  frantic  leap  to 
gain  his  seat,  but  missed,  and  the  huge  armored  wheel 
struck  and  hurled  him  to  the  gutter. 

Harry  did  not  hear  the  sharp  yelp  of  pain;  his  hand 
was  on  the  lever,  pushing  it  over,  over,  to  its  last  notch, 
and  the  great  mechanism,  responding  with  a  leap,  sped 
away,  faster  and  faster,  through  the  night. 

104 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  FALL  OF  THE  CURTAIN" 

Harry  Sanderson  was  acting  in  a  kind  of  fevered 
dream.  His  head  and  hands  were  bare,  his  face  white 
and  immobile,  and  his  ejes  stared  straight  before  him 
with  the  persistent  fixity  of  the  sleep-walker's.  They 
did  not  see  a  bowed,  plodding  figure  pushing  a  rickety, 
wheeled  melodeon,  who  scurried  from  before  the  hur 
tling  weight  that  had  all  but  run  him  down.  Nor  could 
they  see  far  behind  in  the  eddying  dust  a  little  dog, 
moaning,  limping  piteously  on  three  legs,  with  tongue 
lolling  and  shaggy  coat  caked  with  mud — following  the 
hopeless,  bird-like  flight. 

One  mile,  two  miles,  three  miles.  The  streets  were 
far  behind  now.  The  country  road  spun  before  him, 
a  dusty  white  ribbon,  along  which  the  dry  battered  corn 
rattled  as  if  in  a  surge  of  torrid  wind.  The  great  motor 
car  was  reeling  off  the  distance  like  a  maddened  thing, 
swooping  through  the  haloed  dark,  the  throttle  out,  the 
lever  pushed  to  its  utmost  limit  of  speed,  rocking 
drunkenly,  every  inch  of  tested  steel  ringing  and  throb 
bing.  Yet  Harry's  fingers  had  no  tremor,  no  hesitancy, 
no  lack  of  cunning.  His  heart  was  beating  measuredly. 

105 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

He  kept  the  road  by  a  kind  of  instinct  as  rudimentary 
as  that  which  points  the  homing  carrier-pigeon.  He 
seemed  to  be  moving  in  a  mental  world  created  by  some 
significant  clairvoyancy,  in  which  the  purpose  operated 
without  recourse  to  the  spring  of  reason.  The  light  of 
neurasthenia  burned  behind  his  eyelids;  he  felt  at  once 
a  consuming  flame  within,  a  paralyzing  frost  without. 
The  light  autumn  mist  drenched  him  like  a  fine,  sift 
ing  rain ;  the  wheel-flung  dust  adhered  like  yellow  mud, 
and  above  the  clatter  of  the  exhaust  the  still  air  shrieked 
past  like  a  shrewd  wind. 

Five  miles,  through  the  dark,  under  the  breathless, 
expectant  stars.  The  car  was  on  the  broad  curve  now, 
where  the  road  bent  to  the  bluff  above  the  river  to  pass 
the  skeleton  railroad  bridge.  But  Harry  knew  neither 
place  nor  time.  He  was  conscious  only  of  motion — 
swift,  swallow-like,  irresistible — this,  and  the  racing  pic 
tures  in  his  brain,  stencilled  on  the  blur  of  night  that 
closed  around  him.  These  pictures  came  and  went;  the 
last  revel  of  The  Saints  when  he  was  Satan  Sanderson — 
Hugh  sneering  at  his  calling — Jessica  facing  him  with 
unbandaged  eyes — Hallelujah  Jones,  preaching  on  the 
street  corner.  The  figure  of  the  street  evangelist  re 
curred  again  and  again  with  a  singular  persistency.  It 
grew  more  tangible !  It  threatened  him ! 

10G 


THE    FALL    OF    THE    CURTAIN 

Something  in  Harry's  brain  seemed  to  snap.  A  tiny 
shutter,  like  that  of  a  camera,  fell  down.  His  hands 
dropped  from  the  steering-wheel,  and,  swaying  in  his 
seat,  he  began  to  sing,  in  a  voice  made  high  and  uneven 
by  the  speed  of  the  car : 

"Palms  of  Victory, 
Crowns  of  Glory! 
Palms  of  Victory,  I  shall  wear! " 

He  sang  but  the  three  lines.  For  suddenly  the  car 
left  the  road — the  inflated  tires  rebounded  from  the 
steel  ridge  of  the  railroad  track — the  forward  axle 
caught  an  iron  signal  post — and  the  great  motor-car, 
its  shattered  lamp  jingling  like  a  gong,  its  pistons 
thrusting  in  midair,  reared  on  two  wheels,  hurling  its 
occupant  out  like  a  pebble  thrown  from  a  sling,  half- 
turned,  and,  leaving  a  trail  of  sparks  like  the  tail  of  a 
rocket  behind  it,  plunged  heavily  over  the  rim  of  the 
bluff  into  the  river. 

A  moment  later  the  deep  black  waters  of  "the  hole" 
had  closed  above  the  mass  of  sentient  steel.  The  swift 
current  had  smoothed  away  every  trace  of  the  strange 
monster  it  had  engulfed,  and  there,  by  the  side  of  the 
track,  huddled  against  the  broken  signal  post,  his  cloth 
ing  plastered  with  mud  and  grime,  motionless,  and  with 
a  nasty  cut  on  the  temple,  lay  Harry  Sanderson. 

107 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  CLOSED  DOOR 

A  long  saturating  peace,  a  deep  and  drenching  dark 
ness,  had  folded  Harry  Sanderson.  Dully  at  first,  at 
length  more  insistently  and  sharply,  a  rhythmic  pulsing 
sound  began  to  annoy  the  quietude.  K-track,  k-track, 
k-track — it  grew  louder;  it  grew  more  momentous  and 
material;  it  irritated  the  calm  that  had  wrapped  the 
animate  universe.  Shreds  of  confusing  impression  had 
begun  to  arrange  themselves  on  a  void  of  nothingness, 
blurred  inchoate  images  to  struggle  through  a  delicious 
sensation  of  indifference  and  repose.  Outlines  were  fill 
ing,  contours  growing  distinct;  the  brain  was  beginning 
to  resume  its  interrupted  function.  As  though  from 
an  immeasurable  distance  he  heard  a  low  continuous 
roar,  and  now  and  again,  through  the  roar,  nearer  voices. 

Harry  awoke.  His  mind  awoke,  but  his  eyes  did  not 
open  at  once,  for  the  gentle  swaying  that  cradled  him 
was  pleasant  and  the  muffled  clack  and  hum  soothed  him 
like  opium.  He  was  as  serenely  comfortable  as  a  steve 
dore  who  dozes  out  of  the  long  stupefaction  of  ex 
haustion  to  the  realization  that  the  day  is  a  holiday. 

108 


THE    CLOSED    DOOR 

His  blood  was  coursing  like  quicksilver.  He  felt  a 
buoyancy,  a  volatile  pleasure,  a  sense  of  complete  eman 
cipation  from  all  that  clogged  and  cloyed — the  sensuous 
delight  of  the  full  pulse  and  the  perfect  bodily  mechan 
ism. 

He  opened  his  eyes. 

It  was  daylight.  He  was  lying  on  dusty  boards  that 
rattled  and  vibrated  beneath  him — the  floor  of  an  empty 
freight  car  in  motion.  The  sliding  door  was  part-way 
open,  and  through  it  was  borne  the  moist  air  of  a  river 
bay  and  the  purring  wash  of  the  tide.  A  small  brown 
dog,  an  abject,  muddied  and  shivering  morsel,  was 
snuggled  close  to  his  side.  It  whined,  as  if  with  joy  to 
see  his  eyes  opened,  and  its  stubby  tail  beat  the  floor. 

Harry  turned  his  head.  Two  men  in  dingy  garments 
were  seated  on  the  floor  a  little  distance  away,  thumbing 
a  decrepit  pack  of  cards  over  an  empty  box.  He  could 
see  both  side-faces,  one  weather-beaten  and  good-hu 
mored,  the  other  crafty — knights  of  the  road. 

The  sudden  movement  had  sent  a  momentary  twinge 
to  his  temple ;  he  put  up  his  hand — it  touched  a  coarse 
handkerchief  that  had  been  bound  tightly  about  it.  The 
corner  hung  down — it  was  soiled  and  stiff  with  blood. 
What  was  he  doing  there?  Where  was  he?  Who  was 
Jie? 

109 


SATAX    SAXDERSOX 

It  came  to  him  with  a  start  that  he  actually  for  the 
moment  did  not  know  who  he  was — that  he  had  ridicu 
lously  slipped  the  leash  of  his  identity.  He  smiled  at  his 
predicament.  He  would  lie  quietly  for  a  few  moments 
and  it  would  come :  of  course  it  would  come ! 

Yet  it  did  not  come,  though  he  lay  many  moments, 
the  fingers  of  his  mind  fumbling  for  the  latch  of  the 
closed  door.  He  had  waked  perfectly  well — all  save  the 
slight  cut  on  his  temple,  and  that  was  clearly  super 
ficial,  a  mere  scratch.  Not  a  trouble  or  anxiety  marred 
his  soul;  his  mind  was  as  clear  and  light  as  a  lark's. 
Body  and  brain  together  felt  as  if  they  had  never  had 
a  serious  ache  in  the  world.  But  all  that  had  preceded 
his  awakening  was  gone  from  him  as  completely  as 
though  it  had  had  no  existence.  His  mind,  so  far  as 
memory  of  incident  was  concerned,  was  wiped  clean, 
as  a  wet  sponge  wipes  off  a  slate.  Yet  he  felt  no  trouble 
or  anxiety.  That  part  of  his  brain  which  had  vibrated 
to  these  emotions  was,  as  it  were,  under  a  curious  an 
esthesia.  Goaded  and  overkeyed  into  a  state  of  hyper 
tension,  it  had  retaliated  with  insensibility.  All  that 
had  vexed  and  hurt  was  gone  into  the  limbo  with  its  own 
disturbing  memories. 

Stealthily  he  rose  to  a  sitting  posture  and,  with  a 
frown  of  humorous  perplexity,  took  a  swift  and  silent 

110 


THE    CLOSED    DOOR 

inventory.  Here  he  was,  in  a  freight  car,  speeding 
somewhere  or  other,  with  a  sore  and  damaged  skull. 
The  dog  clearly  belonged  to  him,  or  he  to  the  dog — 
there  was  an  old  intimacy  in  the  fawning  fondness  of 
the  amber  eyes.  Yonder  were  two  tramps,  diverting 
themselves  in  their  own  way,  irresponsible  and  ques 
tionable  birds  of  passage.  He  scanned  his  own  cloth 
ing.  It  was  little  better  than  theirs.  His  coat  was 
threadbare,  and  with  mud,  oil  and  coal-dust,  was  in  a 
more  disreputable  state.  His  wristbands  were  grimy, 
and  one  cuff-link  had  been  torn  away.  He  had  no  hat. 
He  bethought  himself  of  his  pockets,  and  went 
through  them  methodically  one  by  one.  They  yielded 
several  dollars  in  coin,  a  penknife  and  a  tiny  gold 
cross,  but  not  a  letter,  not  a  scrap  of  paper,  nothing  to 
serve  him.  The  gleam  of  a  ring  on  his  finger  caught  his 
eye;  he  rubbed  away  the  dirt  and  carefully  examined 
it,  wondering  if  the  stone  was  real.  His  hand  was 
slightly  cut  and  swollen,  and  the  circlet  would  not 
come  off,  but  by  shifting  it  slightly  he  could  see  the 
white  depression  made  by  long  wear.  The  setting  was 
an  odd  one,  formed  of  the  twisted  letters  H.  S.  Those 
naturally  should  be  his  initials,  but  there  he  stopped. 
He  repeated  to  himself  all  the  names  he  could  think  of 
beginning  with  S,  but  they  told  him  nothing. 

Ill 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

He  looked  himself  over  again,  carefully,  reflectively — 
many  a  time  of  old  he  had  regarded  himself  with  the 
same  amused,  fastidious  tolerance  when  dressed  for  a 
"slumming"  expedition — his  head  a  little  to  one  side, 
the  ghost  of  a  smile  on  his  lips.  He  put  out  his  hand 
and  laid  it  on  the  spaniel's  head. 

Its  rough  tongue  licked  his  fingers;  it  held  up  one 
forepaw  mutely  and  lamely.  He  drew  the  feverish,  dirty 
little  creature  into  his  lap  and  examined  the  limp  mem 
ber.  It  was  broken. 

"Poor  little  beggar  I"  said  he  under  his  breath.  "So 
you've  been  knocked  out,  too!"  With  his  knife  he  cut 
a  piece  from  the  lining  of  his  coat  and  with  a  splinter  of 
wood  from  the  floor  he  set  the  fractured  bone  and 
wrapped  the  leg  tightly.  The  dog  submitted  without  a 
whimper,  and  when  he  set  it  down,  it  lay  quietly  be 
side  him,  watching  him  with  affectionate  canine  solici 
tude. 

"I  wonder  who  we  are,  you  and  I,"  muttered  Harry 
Sanderson  whimsically.  "I  wonder!" 

His  gaze  turned  to  where  he  could  see  the  sunshine 
dancing  and  shimmering  from  the  tremulous  water. 
He  sniffed  the  warm  air — it  was  clear  and  sweet.  Not 
a  cloud  was  in  the  perfect  sky.  How  fine  he  felt,  broken 
head  and  all ! 


THE    CLOSED    DOOR 

He  looked  across  the  car,  where  the  card  players  were 
still  absorbed.  Over  the  shoulder  of  one  he  could  see 
the  hand  he  held — a  queen,  two  aces,  a  seven  and  a 
deuce.  For  an  instant  something  in  his  brain  snapped 
and  crackled  like  the  sputtering  spark  of  an  incom 
plete  insulation — for  an  instant  the  fingers  almost 
touched  the  latch  of  the  closed  door.  Then  the  sensa 
tion  faded,  and  left  a  blank  as  before.  He  rose  to  his 
feet  and  walked  forward. 

The  players  looked  around.  One  of  them  nodded  ap 
provingly. 

"Right  as  a  trivet !"  he  said.  "I  made  a  pretty  good 
job  of  that  cut  of  yours.  Hurt  you  much?" 

"No,"  said  Harry.  "I'm  obliged  to  you  for  the  at 
tention." 

"Foolish  to  walk  on  a  railroad  track,"  the  other  went 
on.  "By  your  looks,  you've  been  on  the  road  long 
enough  to  know  better.  We  figgered  it  out  that  you  was 
just  a-going  to  cross  the  railroad  bridge  when  the  freight 
raised  merry  hell  with  you.  We  stopped  to  tank  there 
and  we  picked  you  up,  you  and  your  four-legged  mate. 
Must  have  been  a  bit  squiffy,  eh  ?" 

He  winked,  and  took  a  flask  from  his  pocket.  "Have 
a  hair  of  the  dog  that  bit  you  ?"  he  said. 

Harry  took  the  flask,  and,  wiping  the  top  on  his 
113 


SATAX   SANDERSON 

sleeve,  uncorked  it.  Something  in  the  penetrating  odor 
of  the  contents  seemed  to  cleave  through  far  mental 
wastes  to  an  intimate,  though  mysterious  goal.  He  put 
it  to  his  lips  and  drank  thirstily. 

As  the  burning  liquid  scorched  his  throat,  a  recru 
descence  of  old  impulses  surged  up  through  the  crust 
of  more  modern  usage.  Mentally,  characteristically,  he 
was  once  more  the  incongruous  devil-may-care  figure  in 
whom  conspicuous  achievement  and  contradictory  ex 
cesses  had  walked  hand  in  hand.  The  Harry  Sander 
son  of  the  new,  remorseful,  temperate  life,  of  chastened 
impulses,  of  rote  and  rule  and  reformed  habit — the 
rector  of  St.  James — had  been  lost  on  that  wild  night 
ride.  The  man  who  had  awakened  in  the  freight  car 
was  the  Satan  Sanderson  of  four  years  before,  who,  un 
der  stress  of  mental  illness  and  its  warped  purview,  in 
that  strenuous  scene  in  the  chapel,  had  regained  his 
ancient  governance. 

Harry  handed  back  the  flask  with  a  long  breath. 
There  was  a  composed  yet  reckless  light  in  his  eye — the 
old  veiled  gleam  of  vagary,  and  paradox,  and  escapade. 
He  seated  himself  beside  them. 

"Thank  you,"  he  said.  "With  your  permission,  gen 
tlemen,  I  will  take  a  hand  in  the  game." 


114 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  WOMAN  WHO  REMEMBERED 

Since  that  tragical  wedding-day  at  the  white  house  in 
the  aspens,  Jessica  had  passed  through  a  confusion  of 
experiences.  She  had  always  lived  much  in  herself,,  and 
to  her  natural  reserve  her  blindness  had  added.  As  a 
result  her  knowledge  both  of  herself  and  of  life  had 
been  superficial.  She  had  been  drawn  to  Hugh  by  both 
the  weakest  and  the  noblest  in  her,  in  a  self-obliterating 
worship  that  had  counted  her  restored  sight  only  an 
ornament  and  glory  for  her  love.  In  the  baleful  hour  of 
enlightenment  she  had  been  lost,  whirled  away,  out  into 
the  storm  and  void,  every  landmark  gone,  every  light 
extinguished,  her  feet  set  in  the  "abomination  of  deso 
lation."  The  first  bitter  shock  of  the  catastrophe,  how 
ever,  seemed  to  burn  up  in  her  the  very  capacity  for 
further  poignant  suffering,  and  she  went  through  the 
motions  of  life  apathetically. 

Change  of  scene  and  the  declining  health  of  David 
Stires  occupied,  fortunately,  much  of  her  waking 
thoughts.  After  the  first  few  months  of  travel  he  failed 

115 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

steadily.  His  citric-acid  moods  were  forgotten,  his 
harsh  tempers  put  aside.  Hour  after  hour  he  lay  in  his 
chair,  gazing  out  from  the  wide  sun  parlor  of  the  sana 
torium  on  the  crest  of  Smoky  Mountain,  whither  their 
journeying  had  finally  brought  them.  He  had  never 
spoken  of  Hugh.  But  Jessica,  sitting  each  day  beside 
him,  reading  to  him  till  he  dropped  asleep,  seeing  the 
ever-increasing  sadness  in  his  face,  knew  the  hidden 
canker  that  gnawed  his  heart. 

To  the  northward  the  slope  of  the  mountain  fell 
gradually  to  fields  of  violet-eyed  alfalfa,  and  twice  a  day 
a  self-important  little  donkey-engine  drew  a  single  car 
up  and  down  between  the  great  glass  building  on  the 
ridge  and  the  junction  of  the  northern  railroad.  This 
view  did  not  attract  her;  she  liked  best  the  southern  ex 
posure,  with  its  flushed,  serrated  snow-peaks  in  the  dis 
tance,  the  warmer  brown  shadows  of  the  gulch-seamed 
hills  unrolling  at  her  feet,  and  at  their  base  the  tree 
less,  busy  little  county-seat  two  miles  away.  In  time 
her  fiercer  pain  had  dulled,  and  her  imagination — natu 
rally  so  importunate — had  begun  to  seize  upon  her  sur 
roundings.  In  the  summer  season  the  sanatorium  had 
few  guests,  and  for  this  she  was  thankful.  Doctor 
Brent,  its  head,  rallying  her  on  her  paleness,  drove  her 
out  of  doors  with  good-natured  severity,  and  when  she 

116 


THE    WOMAN    WHO    REMEMBERED 

was  not  with  David  Stires  she  walked  or  rode  for  hours 
at  a  time  over  the  mountain  trails.  Breathing  in  the 
crisp  air  of  altitude  her  spirits  grew  more  buoyant.  The 
beauty  of  shrub  and  flower,  of  cloud  and  sky,  began  to 
call  to  her,  and  the  breath  of  October  found  a  tinge  of 
color  in  her  cheek.  She  fed  the  squirrels,  listened  to  the 
pert  chirp  of  the  whisky- jack  and  the  whirring  drum  of 
the  partridge,  or  sat  on  a  hidden  elevation  which  she 
named  "The  Knob/'  facing  across  the  shallow  valley  to 
the  south. 

The  Knob  overlooked  a  little  grassy  shelf  a  few  hun 
dred  feet  below,  where  stood  a  miner's  cabin,  with  weed- 
grown  gravel  heaps  near  by,  in  front  of  which  a  tree 
bore  the  legend,  painted  roughly  on  a  board:  "The 
Little  Paymaster  Claim."  From  its  point  of  vantage, 
too,  unobserved,  she  could  look  down  into  the  gulch  far 
below,  where  yellowish-brown  cones  reared  like  gigantic 
ant-hills — the  ear-marks  of  the  placer  miner — and  gray 
streaks  indicated  the  flumes  in  which,  by  tortuous  mean- 
derings,  the  water  descended  to  do  its  work  in  the 
sluices.  She  could  even  watch  the  toiling  miners,  hoist 
ing  the  gravel  by  windlasses,  or  shovelling  it  into  the 
long  narrow  boxes  through  which  the  foaming  water 
raced.  So  limpid  was  the  air  that  in  the  little  town  she 
could  distinguish  each  several  building  lining  the  single 

117 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

straight  street — a  familiar  succession  of  gilded  cafe, 
general  emporium  and  drug  store,  with  the  dull  terra 
cotta  "depot"  at  one  end,  and  on  the  other,  on  a  sun 
burned  acre  of  its  own,  the  glaring  white  court-house, 
flanked  by  the  post-office  and  the  jail.  She  could  see 
the  clouds  of  dust,  the  wagons  hitched  at  the  curb  and 
the  drab  figures  grouped  at  the  corners  or  passing  in  and 
out  of  doorways. 

Her  interest  had  opened  eagerly  to  these  scenes.  The 
solitudes  soothed  and  the  life  of  the  community  below, 
frankly  primitive  and  uncomplicated,  attracted  her.  Be 
tween  the  town  of  Smoky  Mountain  and  the  expensive 
sanatorium  on  the  ridge  a  great  social  gulf  was  fixed ; 
the  latter's  patrons  for  the  most  part  came  and  went  by 
the  narrow-gage  road  that  linked  with  the  northern 
junction ;  the  settlement  far  below  was  only  a  feature  of 
the  panorama  for  which  they  paid  so  well.  Even  Doc 
tor  Brent — who  had  perched  this  place  of  healing  where 
his  patients  could  breathe  air  fresh  from  the  Pacific  and 
cooled  by  the  snow-peaks — knew  it  chiefly  through  two 
of  its  citizens,  Mrs.  Halloran,  the  capable,  bustling  wife 
of  the  proprietor  of  the  Mountain  Valley  House,  the 
town's  single  hostelry,  who  brewed  old-fashioned  black 
berry  wine  and  cordials  for  his  patients,  and  Tom 
Felder,  a  young  lawyer  whom  he  had  known  on  the 

118 


THE    WOMAN"    WHO    REMEMBERED 

coast  before  ill  health  had  sent  him  to  hang  out  his 
shingle  in  a  more  genial  altitude. 

The  latter  sometimes  came  for  a  chat  with  the  physi 
cian,  and  on  one  of  these  calls  Jessica  and  he  had  met. 
She  had  liked  his  keen,  good-humored  face  and  waving, 
slightly  graying  hair.  She  had  met  him  once  since  on 
the  mountain  road,  and  he  had  walked  with  her  and 
told  her  quaint  stories  of  the  townspeople.  She  did  not 
guess  that  more  than  once  since  then  he  had  walked 
there  hoping  to  meet  her  again.  He  had  taken  her  to 
Mrs.  Halloran,  whose  heart  she  had  won  by  praise  of 
her  cherry  cordial. 

As  Mrs.  Halloran  said  afterward:  "'Twas  no  flirt 
with  the  bottle  and  make  love  to  the  spoon !  She  ain't 
a  bit  set  up.  Take  the  word  I  give  you,  Tom  Felder, 
an'  go  and  swap  lies  with  the  doctor  at  the  santaranium 
soon  again.  Ye  can  do  worse/' 

This  had  been  Jessica's  first  near  acquaintance  with 
the  town,  but  since  that  time  she  had  often  reined  up  at 
the  door  of  the  neat  hotel  to  pass  a  word  with  Mrs.  Hal 
loran  or  to  ask  for  another  bottle  of  the  cherry  cordial, 
which  the  sick  man  she  daily  tended  found  grateful  to 
his  jaded  palate. 

"It  brings  back  my  boyhood,"  David  Stires  said  to 
her  one  afternoon,  tapping  the  bottle  by  his  wheel-chair. 

119 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"That  was  before  the  chemist  married  the  vintner's 
daughter.    Somehow  this  has  the  old  taste." 

"It  is  nearly  gone,"  she  said.  "I'll  get  another  bottle 
— I  am  going  for  a  ride  now.  I  think  it  does  you  good." 

"Before  you  go"  he  said,  "fetch  my  writing-case  and 
I  will  dictate  a  letter." 

She  brought  and  opened  it  with  a  trouble  at  her  heart, 
for  the  request  showed  his  increasing  weakness.  .Until 
to-day  the  few  letters  he  had  written  had  been  done 
with  his  own  hand.  Thinking  of  this  as  she  waited,  her 
fingers  nervously  plucked  at  the  inside  of  the  leather 
cover.  The  morocco  flap  fell  and  disclosed  a  slip  of  pa 
per.  It  was  a  canceled  bank-draft.  It  bore  Hugh's 
name,  and  across  its  face,  in  David  Stires'  crabbed  hand, 
written  large,  was  the  venomous  word  Forgery. 

The  room  swam  before  her  eyes.  Only  by  a  fierce  effort 
could  she  compel  her  pen  to  trace  the  dictated  words. 
Hugh's  misdeed,  evil  as  it  was,  had  been  to  her  but  an 
abstract  crime;  now  it  suddenly  lay  bare  before  her,  a 
concrete  expression  of  coarse  thievery,  a  living  symbol 
of  crafty  simulation.  Scarce  knowing  why  she  did  it, 
she  drew  the  draft  covertly  from  its  receptacle,  and 
slipped  it  into  her  bosom.  Her  fingers  trembled  as  they 
replaced  the  flap,  and  her  face  was  pale  when  she  put 
away  the  writing-case  and  went  to  don  her  habit. 

120 


THE    WOMAN   WHO   REMEMBERED 

The  evidence  of  Hugh's  sin!  As  the  horse  pounded 
down  the  winding  road,  she  held  her  hand  hard  against 
her  breast,  as  though  it  were  a  live  coal  that  she  would 
press  into  her  flesh  in  self-torture.  That  paper  must  re 
main,  as  the  sin  that  made  it  remained — the  sign- 
manual  of  her  dishonor  and  loss !  The  man  whose  hand 
had  penned  its  lying  signature  was  the  man  she  had 
thought  she  loved.  By  that  act  he  had  thrust  himself 
from  her  for  ever.  Yet  he  lived.  Somewhere  in  the 
world  he  walked,  in  shame  and  degradation,  beyond  the 
pale  of  honorable  living — and  she  was  his  wife ! 

She  was  his  wife!  The  words  hummed  in  the  hoof- 
beats  and  taunted  her.  The  odors  of  the  balsam  boughs 
about  her  became  all  at  once  the  scent  of  jasmin, 
the  sigh  of  the  wind  turned  to  the  chanting  of  choir 
voices,  and  beneath  her  closed  eyelids  came  a  face  seen 
but  once,  but  never  to  be  erased  or  forgotten,  a  face 
startled,  quivering  with  a  strange,  remorseful  flush — 
which  she  had  not  guessed  was  guilt ! 

She  was  his  wife!  Though  she  called  herself  Jessica 
Holme,  yet,  in  the  law,  his  name  and  fame  were  hers. 
There  was  deep  in  her  the  unreasoned,  intuitive  regard, 
handed  down  through  inflexible  feminine  generations, 
for  the  relentless  mandate,  "let  not  man  put  asunder;" 
but  she  had  no  finical  conception  of  woman's  duty  to 

121 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

convention.  To  break  the  bond?  To  divorce  the  hus 
band  to  whom  she  was  wife  in  name  only  ?  That  would 
be  to  spread  abroad  the  disgrace  under  which  she 
cringed!  She  thought  of  the  old  man  she  had  left — 
uncomplaining,  growing  feebler  every  day.  To  shame 
him  before  the  world,  whose  ancestors  had  been  upright 
and  clean-handed  ?  To  add  the  final  sting  to  his  suffer 
ings — who  had  done  her  only  good?  No,  she  could 
not  do  that.  Time  must  solve  the  problem  for  her  in 
some  other  way. 

The  main  street  of  the  town  was  busy,  yet  quiet 
withal,  with  the  peculiar  quiet  which  marks  the  absence 
of  cobblestone  and  trolley-bell.  Farmers  from  outlying 
fruit  ranches  gossiped  on  the  court-house  square;  here 
and  there  a  linen  collar  and  white  straw  hat  betokened 
the  professional  man  or  drummer;  and  miners  in  over 
alls  and  thong-laced  boots  kept  a-swing  the  rattan  half- 
doors  of  the  saloons. 

"Look  at  that  steady  hand,  now,  an'  her  hair  as  red  as 
glory !"  said  Mrs.  Halloran,  gazing  admiringly  from  the 
doorstep  where  she  had  been  chatting  with  Tom  Felder. 
"Ye  needn't  stare  yer  gray  eyes  out  though,  or  she'll 
stop  at  th'  joolry  shop  to  buy  ye  a  ring — to  shame  ye  fer 
jest  hankerin'  and  sayin'  nothin' !" 

Felder  laughed  as  he  crossed  the  street,  raising  his 
122 


THE    WOMAN    WHO    EEMEMBERED 

felt  hat  gallantly  to  the  approaching  rider.  Mrs.  Hal- 
loran  was  a  privileged  character.  The  ravage  of  drudg 
ery  had  not  robbed  her  of  comeliness  that  gave  her  face 
an  Indian  summer  charm,  and  she  was  as  kindly  as  her 
husband  °was  morose.  It  was  not  Michael  Halloran  who 
kept  the  Mountain  Valley  House  popular!  The  old 
woman  hurried  to  the  curb  and  tied  the  horse  as  Jessica 
dismounted. 

"How  did  ye  guess  I  made  some  more  this  day?"  she 
exclaimed.  "Sure,  if  ye  drink  it  yerself,  my  dearie, 
them  cheeks  is  all  tin?  trade-mark  I  need !"  She  led  the 
way  into  the  little  carpeted  side  room,  by  courtesy  de 
nominated  "the  parlor."  "I'll  go  an'  put  it  up  in  two 
shakes,"  she  said.  "Sit  ye  down  an'  I'll  not  be  ten  min 
utes."  So  saying  she  bustled  away. 

Left  alone,  Jessica  gazed  abstractedly  about  her.  Her 
mind  was  still  full  of  the  painful  reflections  of  her  ride. 
A  door  opened  from  the  room  into  the  office.  It  was 
ajar;  she  stepped  close  and  looked  in. 

A  group  of  miners  lounged  in  the  space  before  the 
front  windows — familiarly  referred  to  by  its  habitues 
as  "the  Amen  Corner" — chatting  and  watching  the 
passers-by. 

Suddenly  she  clapped  her  hand  to  her  mouth  to  stifle 
a  cry.  A  name  had  been  spoken — the  name  that  was  in 

123 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

her  thought — the  name  of  "Hugh  Stires."     She  leaned 
forward,  listening  breathlessly. 

"I  wonder  where  the  young  blackleg's  been,"  said  one, 
peering  through  the  windows.  "He'd  better  have  stayed 
away  for  good,  I'm  thinking.  What  does  he  want  to 
come  back  for,  to  a  place  where  there  aren't  three  men 
who  will  take  a  drink  with  him  ?" 

The  reply  was  as  contemptuous. 

"We  get  some  rare  black  sheep  in  the  hills!"  The 
voice  spoke  meaningly.  "If  I  had  my  way,  he'd  leave 
this  region  almighty  quick  !" 

Jessica  looked  about  her  an  instant  wildly,  guiltily. 
She  could  not  be  mistaken  in  the  name!  Was  Hugh 
here,  whither  by  the  veriest  accident  she  had  come — 
here  in  this  very  town  that  she  had  gazed  down  upon 
every  day  for  weeks?  Was  he?  She  pressed  her  cold 
hands  to  her  colder  cheeks.  The  contempt  in  the  voices 
had  smitten  through  her  like  a  sword. 

A  revulsion  seized  her.  No,  no,  it  could  not  be !  She 
had  not  heard  aright.  It  was  only  a  fancy!  But  she 
had  an  overwhelming  desire  to  satisfy  herself  with  her 
own  eyes.  From  where  she  stood  she  could  not  see  the 
street.  She  bethought  herself  of  the  upper  balcony. 

Swiftly,  on  tiptoe,  she  crossed  to  the  hall  door,  threw 
it  open,  and  ran  hastily  up  the  stair. 

124 


CHAPTEK  XV 

THE  MAN"  WHO  HAD  FORGOTTEN" 

If  the  man  who  had  been  the  subject  of  the  observa 
tions  Jessica  had  heard  had  been  less  absorbed,  as  he 
walked  leisurely  along  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street, 
he  would  have  noticed  the  look  of  dislike  in  the  eyes  of 
those  he  passed.  They  drew  away  from  him,  and  one 
spoke — to  no  one  in  particular  and  with  an  oath  offen 
sive  and  fervid.  But  weather-beaten,  tanned,  indiffer 
ently  clad,  and  with  a  small  brown  dog  following  him, 
the  new-comer  passed  along,  oblivious  to  the  sidelong 
scrutiny.  He  did  not  stare  about  him  after  the  manner 
of  a  stranger,  though,  so  far  as  he  knew,  he  had  never 
been  in  the  place  before.  So  far  as  he  knew — for  Harry 
Sanderson  had  no  memories  save  those  which  had  begun 
on  a  certain  day  a  month  before  in  a  box-car.  He 
walked  with  eyes  on  the  pavement,  absorbed  in  thoughts 
of  his  own. 

But  Harry  Sanderson  now  was  not  the  man  who  had 
ridden  into  oblivion  in  the  motor-car.  The  rector  of  St. 
James  was  in  a  strange  eclipse.  Mentally  and  externally 

133 


SATAN    SANDERSON" 

he  had  reverted  to  the  old  Satan  Sanderson,  of  the 
brilliant  flashing  originality,  of  the  curt  risk  and  daring. 
The  deeply  human  and  sensitive  side,  that  had  developed 
during  his  divinity  years,  was  in  abeyance ;  it  showed  it 
self  only  in  the  affection  he  bestowed  on  the  little  name 
less  dog  that  followed  him  like  a  brown,  shaggy  shadow. 

He  was  like  that  old  self  of  his,  and  yet,  if  he  had  but 
known  it,  he  was  wonderfully  like  some  one  else,  too — 
some  one  who  had  belonged  to  the  long  ago  and  garbled 
past  that  still  eluded  him ;  some  one  who  had  been  a  part 
also  of  the  life  of  this  very  town,  till  a  little  over  a 
month  before,  when  he  had  left  it  with  .dread  dogging 
his  footsteps ! 

Curious  coincidences  had  wrought  together  for  this 
likeness.  In  the  past  weeks  Harry  had  grown  percep 
tibly  thinner.  A  spare  beard  was  now  on  his  chin,  and 
the  fiery  sun  that  had  darkened  his  cheeks  to  sallow  had 
lightened  his  brown  hair  a  shade.  The  cut  on  his  brow 
had  healed  to  the  semblance  of  a  thin  red  birth-mark. 
Most  of  all,  the  renaissance  of  the  old  character  had 
given  his  look,  to  the  casual  eye,  a  certain  flare  and 
jauntiness,  which  dissipation  and  license,  unclogged  now 
with  memory  or  compunction,  had  matured  and  vital 
ized.  His  was  now  a  replica  of  the  face  he  had  once 
seen,  in  that  lost  life  of  his,  mirrored  in  his  chapel  study 

126 


THE   MAN   WHO    HAD    FORGOTTEN 

— his  own  face,  with  the  trail  of  evil  upon  it,  and  yet 
weirdly  like  Hugh  Stircs'. 

Fate — or  God ! — was  doing  strange  things  for  Harry 
Sanderson ! 

Harry's  game  of  cards  in  the  freight-car  had  been  a 
sequent  of  the  game  in  the  chapel.  It  was  an  instinctive 
effort  of  the  newly-stirring  consciousness  to  relink  the 
broken  chain,  utilizing  the  mental  formula  which  had 
been  stamped  deeply  upon  it  when  the  curtain  of  ob 
livion  descended — which  had  persisted,  as  the  photo 
graph  of  the  dead  retina  shows  the  scene  upon  which  the 
living  eye  last  looked.  The  weeks  that  followed  were 
reversionary.  Rebellion  against  convention,  dissipation 
— these  had  been  the  mask  through  which  the  odd  tem 
perament  of  Satan  Sanderson  had  looked  at  life.  This 
mask  had  fallen  before  a  career  of  new  meanings  and 
motives.  These  blotted  suddenly  out  with  their  inspira 
tions  and  habits,  and,  the  old  spring  touched,  the  mind 
had  automatically  resumed  its  old  viewpoint. 

He  had  studied  himself  with  a  sardonic,  ex  parte  in 
terest.  He  had  found  at  his  disposal  a  well-stocked  mind, 
a  copious  vocabulary.  Terms  of  science,  historic  refer 
ences,  the  thousand  and  one  allusions  of  the  daily 
newspaper  that  the  unlearned  pass  over,  all  had  their 

127 


SATAN  SANDEBSON 

significance  for  him.  He  was  no  superficial  observer,  and 
readily  recognized  the  evidences  of  mental  culture.  But 
the  cord  that  had  bound  all  together  into  character  had 
snapped.  He  was  a  ship  without  a  rudder;  a  derelict, 
drifting  with  the  avid  winds  of  chance  on  the  tide  of 
fate.  A  thousand  ways  he  had  turned  and  turned.  A 
thousand  tricks  he  had  tried  to  cajole  the  unwilling 
memory.  All  were  vain.  When  he  had  awakened  in  the 
freight-car,  many  miles  had  lain  between  him  and  his 
vanished  history,  between  him  and  St.  James  parish,  the 
town  he  had  impressed,  the  desolate  white  house  in  the 
'aspens,  the  chapel  service  and  surplice,  and  the  swift 
and  secret-keeping  river.  Between  him  and  all  that  these 
things  had  meant,  there  lay  a  gulf  of  silence  and  blank- 
ness  as  wide  as  infinity  itself. 

But  drifting,  adventuring,  blown  by  the  gipsy  wind 
of  chance,  learning  the  alphabet  and  the  rule  of  three  of 
"the  road,"  the  man  was  at  once  a  part  of  it  and  apart 
from  it.  The  side  that  rejoiced  in  the  liberty  and  mad 
cap  adventure  was  overlaid  by  another  darkling  side 
whose  fingers  were  ever  feeling  for  the  lost  latch.  In  the 
nomad  weeks  of  wind  and  sun,  as  the  tissues  of  the  brain 
grew  slowly  back  to  a  state  of  normal  action,  the  mind 
seized  again  and  again  upon  the  bitter  question  of  his 
identity.  It  had  obtruded  into  clicking  leagues  on  steel- 

128 


THE    MAN    WHO    HAD    FOKGOTTEN 

rails,  into  miles  afoot  by  fruit-hung  lanes,  on  white  Pa 
cific  shell-roads  under  cedar  branches,  on  busy  highways. 
It  had  stalked  into  days  of  labor  in  hop-fields,  work  with 
hand  and  foot  that  brought  dreamless  sleep  and  gener 
ous  wage;  into  nights  of  less  savory  experience  in  city 
purlieus,  where  a  self -forgotten  man  gamed  and  drank, 
recklessly,  audaciously,  forbiddingly.  Who  was  he? 
From  'what  equation  of  life  had  he  been  eliminated  ? 
Had  he  loved  anything  or  anybody?  Had  he  a  friend, 
any  friend,  in  the  world?  At  first  it  was  not  often  that 
he  cared;  only  occasionally  some  deep-rooted  instinct 
would  stir,  subtly  conscious,  without  actual  contrast,  of 
the  missed  and  evaded.  But  he  came  to  ask  it  no  longer 
quizzically  or  sardonically,  but  gloomily  and  fiercely. 
And  lacking  answer,  the  man  of  no  yesterdays  had 
plunged  on  toward  the  ardent,  alien  to-morrow,  and 
further  into  audacious  folly.  He  had  drunk  deeper,  the 
sign-posts  of  warning  were  set  in  his  countenance,  and 
his  smile  had  grown  as  dangerous  as  a  sunstroke. 

The  man  of  no  memories  gave  no  heed  to  the  men  on 
the  street  who  looked  at  him  askance.  He  sauntered 
along  unconsciously,  his  hands  thrust  deep  in  his  pock 
ets.  With  a  casual  glance  at  the  hotel  across  the  way,  he 
entered  a  saloon,  where  a  score  of  patrons  weje  standing 

129 


SATAN    SANDERSON" 

at  the  bar,  or  shaking  dice  noisily  at  the  tables  ranged 
against  the  wall.  The  bartender  nodded  to  his  greeting 
— the  slightest  possible  nod.  The  dog  who  had  followed 
him  into  the  place  leaped  up  against  him,  its  forepaws 
on  his  knee. 

"Brandy,  if  you  please,"  said  the  new  arrival,  and 
poured  indolently  from  the  bottle  set  before  him. 

The  conversation  in  the  room  had  chilled.  To  its  oc 
cupants  the  man  who  had  entered  was  no  stranger;  he 
was  Hugh  Stires,  returned  unwelcome  to  a  place  from 
which  he  had  lately  vanished.  Moreover,  what  they  felt 
for  him  was  not  alone  the  crude  hatred  which  the  honest 
toiler  feels  for  the  trickster  who  gains  a  living  by  devi 
ous  knaveries.  There  was  an  uglier  suspicion  afloat  of 
Hugh  Stires!  A  blue-shirted  miner  called  gruffly  for 
his  score,  threw  down  the  silver  and  went  out,  slamming 
the  swing-door.  Another  glowered  at  the  new  arrival, 
and  ostentatiously  drew  his  glass  farther  along  the  bar. 

The  new-comer  regarded  none  of  them.  He  poured 
his  glass  slowly  full,  sipped  from  it,  and  holding  it  in 
his  hand,  turned  and  glanced  deliberately  about  the 
place.  He  looked  at  everybody  in  the  room,  suddenly 
sensible  of  the  hostile  atmosphere,  with  what  seemed  a 
careless  amusement.  Then  he  raised  his  glass. 

"Will  you  join  me,  gentlemen  ?"  he  said. 
130 


THE    MAN   WHO    HAD    FOEGOTTEN 

There  was  but  one  response.  A  soiled,  shambling  fig 
ure,  blear,  white-haired  and  hesitating,  with  a  battered 
violin  under  its  arm,  slouched  from  a  corner  and  grasped 
eagerly  for  the  bottle  the  bartender  contemptuously 
pushed  toward  him.  No  one  else  moved. 

The  man  who  waited  studied  the  roomful  with  a  dis 
dainful  smile,  with  eyes  sparkling  like  steel  points.  He 
as  wholly  misunderstood  their  dislike  as  they  miscon 
strued  his  effrontery — did  not  guess  that  to  them  he 
stood  as  one  whom  they  had  known  and  had  good  reason 
to  despise.  Their  attitude  struck  him  as  so  manifestly 
unreasonable  and  absurd — so  primarily  the  sulky  hatred 
of  the  laborious  boor  for  the  manifestly  more  flippant 
member  of  society — that  it  diverted  him.  He  had  drunk 
at  bar-rooms  in  many  strange  places;  never  before  had 
he  encountered  a  community  like  this.  His  veiled,  in 
solent  smile  swept  the  room. 

"A  spirit  of  brotherhood  almost  Christian!"  he  said. 
"If  I  observe  that  the  town's  brandy  is  of  superior 
vintage  to  its  breeding,  let  me  not  be  understood  as  com 
plimenting  the  former  without  reservation.  I  have  drunk 
better  brandy ;  I  have  never  seen  worse  manners !" 

He  looked  smilingly  at  the  soiled  figure  beside  him — 
a  fragment  of  flotsam  tossed  on  the  tide  of  failure.  "I 
erred  in  my  general  salutation,"  he  said.  "Gentility  is, 

131 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

after  all,  less  a  habit  than  an  instinct."  He  lifted  his 
glass — to  the  castaway.  "I  drink  to  the  health  of  the 
only  other  gentleman  present/'  he  said,  and  tossed  the 
drink  off. 

A  snort  and  a  truculent  shuffle  came  from  the  stand 
ing  men.  Their  faces  were  dark.  Tom  Felder,  the  law 
yer,  entered  the  saloon  just  in  time  to  see  big  Devlin, 
the  owner  of  the  corner  dance-hall,  rise  from  a  table, 
rolling  up  flannel  sleeves  along  tattooed  arms.  He  saw 
him  stride  forward  and,  with  a  well-directed  shove,  send 
the  shambling  inebriate  reeling  across  the  floor. 

"Two  curs  at  the  bar  are  enough  at  a  time!"  quoth 
Devlin. 

Then  the  lawyer  saw  an  extraordinary  thing.  The 
emptied  glass  rang  sharply  on  the  bar,  the  arm  that  held 
it  straightened,  the  lithe  form  behind  it  seemed  to  ex 
pand — and  the  big  bulk  of  Devlin  went  backward 
through  the  doorway,  and  collapsed  in  a  sprawling  heap 
on  the  pavement. 

"For  my  part,"  said  an  even,  infuriate  voice  from  the 
threshold,  "I  prefer  but  one." 

The  face  the  roomful  saw  now  as  they  pushed  to  the 
outer  air,  and  which  turned  on  the  flocking  crowd,  bore 
anything  but  the  slinking  look  they  had  been  used  to 
see  on  the  face  of  Hugh  Stires.  The  smile  that  meant 

132 


THE    MAN   WHO    HAD   FOKGOTTEN 

danger  played  over  it;  there  was  both  calculation  and 
savagery  in  it.  It  was  the  look  of  the  man  to  whom  all 
risks  are  alike,  to  whom  nothing  counts.  In  the  instant 
confusion,  every  one  there  recognized  the  element  of 
hardihood  dumfounded.  Here  was  one  who, ''as  Barney 
McGinn,  the  freighter,  said  afterward,  "hadn't  the  sand 
of  a  sick  coyote,"  bearding  a  bully  and  the  most  formida 
ble  antagonist  the  town  afforded.  Devlin  himself  was 
not  overpopular;  his  action  had  been  plainly  enough  a 
play  to  the  galleries;  and  courage — that  animal  at 
tribute  which  no  circumstance  or  condition  can  rob  of 
due  admiration — had  appeared  in  an  unexpected  quarter. 
But  the  man  they  despised  had  infuriated  them  with 
insult,  and  Devlin  had  the  sympathy  that  clings  to  a 
fair  cause.  An  ugly  growl  was  running  through  the 
crowd,  and  several  started  forward.  Even  when  Tom 
Felder  put  up  his  hand  with  a  sharp,  indignant  exclama 
tion,  they  fell  back  with  an  unwilling  compulsion. 

The  prostrate  man  was  on  his  feet  in  an  instant,  wip 
ing  the  blood  from  a  cleft  lip,  and  peeled  off  his  vest 
with  a  vile  epithet. 

"That  is  incidentally  a  venturesome  word  to  select 
from  your  vocabulary/'  said  the  even  voice,  a  sort  of 
detonation  in  it.  "You  will  feel  like  apologizing  pres 
ently." 

133 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

Devlin  came  on  with  a  bull-like  rush.  The  lawyer's 
eye,  shrewdly  gaging  the  situation,  gave  the  slighter 
man  short  shrift,  and  for  several  intense  seconds  every 
breath  stopped.  Those  seconds  called  up  from  some  mys 
terious  covert  all  the  skill  and  strength  of  the  old  hard 
hitting  Satan  Sanderson,  all  the  science  of  parry  and 
feint  learned  in  those  bluff  college  bouts  with  the  gloves 
with  Gentleman  Jim.  And  this  hidden  reserve  rushed 
into  combat  with  an  avid  thirst  and  wild  ferocity  as 
strange  as  the  steady  eye  and  hand  that  cloaked  them  be 
neath  a  sardonic  coolness. 

It  was  a  short,  sharp  contest.  Not  a  blow  broke  the 
guard  of  the  man  whose  back  was  to  the  doorway — on 
the  other  hand,  Devlin's  face  was  puffed  and  bleeding. 
When  for  a  breath  he  drew  back,  gulping,  a  sudden  glint 
of  doubt  and  fear  had  slipped  beneath  the  blood  and 
sweat. 

The  end  came  quickly.  Harry  stepped  to  meet  him, 
there  was  a  series  of  swift  passes — then  one,  two,  light 
ning-like  blows,  and  Devlin  went  down  white  and 
stunned  in  the  dust  of  the  roadway. 

So  high  was  the  tension  and  so  instantaneous  the  close, 
that  for  a  moment  the  crowd  was  noiseless,  the  spell  still 
upon  them.  In  that  moment  Tom  Felder  came  hastily 
forward,  for,  though  sharing  the  general  dislike,  admira- 

134 


THE    MAN   WHO    HAD    FOKGOTTEN 

tion  was  strong  in  him,  and,  knowing  the  temper  of  the 
bystanders,  he  expected  trouble. 

The  man  who  had  administered  Devlin's  punishment, 
however,  did  not  see  his  approach.  He  was  looking  some 
where  above  their  heads — at  the  upper  balcony  of  the 
hotel  opposite — staring,  in  a  kind  of  strained  and  horri 
fied  expectancy,  at  a  girl  who  leaned  forward,  her  hands 
clenching  the  balustrade,  her  eyes  fixed  on  his  face.  The 
late  sunlight  on  her  hair  made  it  gleam  like  burnished 
copper  over  her  green  riding-habit,  and  her  cheeks  were 
blanched. 

There  was  something  in  that  face,  in  that  intense  look, 
that  seemed  to  cleave  the  gray  veil  that  swathed  Harry 
Sanderson's  past.  Somewhere,  buried  in  some  cell  of  his 
brain,  a  forgotten  memory  tugged  at  its  shackles — a 
memory  of  a  time  when,  thousands  and  thousands  of 
years  ago,  he  had  been  something  more  than  the  initials 
"H.  S."  The  look  pierced  through  the  daredevil  present 
in  which  the  mind  astray  had  roved  reckless  and  in 
sensate,  to  a  deeper  stratum  in  which  slept  maturer 
qualities  of  refined  taste,  of  dignity  and  of  repute.  It 
stripped  off  the  protecting  cicatrice  and  left  him  en 
veloped  in  an  odd  embarrassment.  A  flush  burned  his 
face. 

Only  an  instani  the  gaze  hung  between  them.  It 
135 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

served  as  a  distraction,  for  other  eyes  had  raced  to  the 
balcony.  Loud  voices  were  suddenly  hushed,  for  there 
was  not  wanting  in  the  crowd  that  instinctive  regard 
for  the  proprieties  which  belongs  to  communities  where 
gentlewomen  are  few.  In  that  instant  Felcler  put  his 
hand  on  the  arm  of  the  staring  man  and  drew  him  to 
the  door  of  the  hotel. 

"Inside,  quickly!"  he  said  under  his  breath,  for  a 
rumble  from  the  crowd  told  him  the  girl  had  left  the 
balcony  above.  He  pushed  the  other  through  the  door 
way  and  turned  for  a  second  on  the  threshold. 

"Whatever  private  feelings  you  may  have,"  he  said  in 
a  tone  that  all  heard,  "don't  disgrace  the  town.  Fair 
play — no  matter  who  he  is!  McGinn,  I  should  think 
you,  at  least,  were  big  enough  to  settle  your  grudges 
without  the  help  of  a  crowd." 

The  freighter  reddened  angrily  for  a  second,  then 
with  a  shame-faced  laugh,  shrugged  his  shoulders  and 
turned  away.  The  lawyer  went  in,  shutting  the  hotel 
door  behind  him. 


136 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   AWAKENING 

The  man  whose  part  the  lawyer  had  taken  had  yielded 
to  his  touch  almost  dazedly  as  the  girl  disappeared.  The 
keen,  pleasurable  tang  of  danger  which  had  leaped  in 
his  blood  when  he  faced  the  enmity  of  the  crowded  street 
— the  reckless  zest  with  which  he  would  have  met  any 
odds  and  any  outcome  with  the  same  smile,,  and  gone 
down  if  need  be  fighting  like  the  tiger  in  the  jungle — 
had  been  pierced  through  by  that  look  from  the  balcony. 
His  poise  for  a  puzzling  moment  had  been  shaken,  his 
self-command  overthrown.  Feeling  a  dull  sense  of  anger 
at  the  curious  embarrassment  upon  him,  he  went  slowly 
through  the  office  to  the  desk,  and  with  his  back  to  the 
room,  lit  a  cigar. 

The  action  was  half  mechanical,  but  to  the  men  gath 
ered  at  the  windows,  as  they  got  down  from  the  chairs 
on  which  they  had  been  standing,  interested  spectators 
of  the  proceedings  outside,  it  seemed  a  pose  of  gratuitous 
insolence.  Tom  Felder,  entering,  saw  it  with  something 
of  resentment. 

137 


SATAX   SANDERSON1 

"That  was  a  close  squeak,"  he  said.  "Do  you  realize 
that  ?  In  five  minutes  more  you'd  have  been  handled  a 
sight  worse  than  you  handled  your  man,  let  me  tell  you !" 

The  man  of  no  memories  smiled,  the  same  smile  that 
had  infuriated  the  bar-room — and  yet  somehow  it  was 
more  difficult  to  smile  now. 

"Is  it  possible/'  he  asked,  "that  through  an  unlucky 
error  I  have  trounced  the  local  archbishop  ?" 

Felder  looked  at  him  narrowly.  Beneath  the  sarcasm 
he  distinguished  unfamiliarity,  aloofness,  a  genuine  as 
tonishment.  The  appearance  in  the  person  of  Hugh 
Stires  of  the  qualities  of  nerve  and  courage  had  sur 
prised  him  out  of  his  usual  indifference.  The  "tinhorn 
gambler"  had  fought  like  a  man.  His  present  sang-froid 
was  as  singular.  Had  he  been  an  absolute  stranger  in 
the  town  he  might  have  acted  and  spoken  no  differently. 
Felders  smooth-shaven,  earnest  face  was  puzzled  as  he 
answered  curtly : 

"You've  trounced  a  man  who  will  remember  it  a  long 
time." 

"Ah?"  said  the  man  addressed  easily.  "He  has  a 
better  memory  than  I,  then !" 

He  gazed  over  the  heads  of  the  silent  roomful  to  the 
simmering  street  where  Devlin,  with  the  aid  of  a  sup 
porting  arm,  was  staggering  into  the  saloon  in  which 

138 


THE    AWAKENING 

his  humiliation  had  begun.  "They  seem  agitated,"  he 
said.  The  feeling  of  embarrassment  was  passing,  the 
old  daring  was  lifting.  His  glance,  scanning  the  room, 
set  itself  on  a  shabby,  blear  figure  in  the  background, 
apologetic  yet  keenly  and  pridefully  interested.  A  whim 
sical  light  was  in  his  eye.  He  crossed  to  him  and, 
reaching  out  his  hand,  drew  the  violin  from  under  his 
arm. 

"Music  hath  charms  to  soothe  the  savage  breast,"  he 
said,  and,  opening  the  door,  he  tucked  the  instrument 
under  his  chin  and  began  to  play. 

What  absolute  contempt  of  danger,  what  insane 
prompting  possessed  him,  can  scarcely  be  imagined.  As 
he  stood  there  on  the  threshold  with  that  veiled  smile, 
he  seemed  utterly  careless  of  consequence,  beckoning 
attack,  flaunting  an  egregious  impertinence  in  the  face 
of  anger  and  dislike.  Felder  looked  for  a  quick  end  to 
the  folly,  but  he  saw  the  men  in  the  street,  even  as  they 
moved  forward,  waver  and  pause.  With  almost  the  first 
note,  it  had  come  to  them  that  they  were  hearing  music 
such  as  the  squeaking  fiddles  of  the  dance-halls  never 
knew.  Those  on  the  opposite  pavement  crossed  over, 
and  men  far  down  the  street  stood  still  to  listen. 

More  than  the  adept's  cunning,  that  had  at  first  tin 
gled  in  his  fingers  at  sight  of  the  instrument,  was  in 

139 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

Harry  Sanderson's  playing.  The  violin  had  been  the 
single  passion  which  the  old  Satan  Sanderson  had  car 
ried  with  him  into  the  new  career.  The  impulse  to 
"soothe  the  savage  breast"  had  been  a  flare  of  the  old 
character  he  had  been  reliving ;  but  the  music,  begun  in 
bravado,  swept  him  almost  instantly  beyond  its  bounds. 
He  had  never  been  an  indifferent  performer ;  now  he  was 
playing  as  he  had  never  played  in  his  life,  with  inspira 
tion  and  abandon.  There  was  a  diabolism  in  it.  He  had 
forgotten  the  fight,  the  crowd,  his  own  mocking  mood. 
He  had  forgotten  where  he  was.  He  was  afloat  on  a 
fluctuant  tide  of  melody  that  was  carrying  him  back — 
— back — into  the  far-away  past — toward  all  that  he  had 
loved  and  lost ! 

"It's  Home,  Sweet  Home''  said  Barney  McGinn, — 
"no,  it's  Annie  Laurie.  No,  it's — hanged  if  I  know  what 
it  is !" 

The  player  himself  could  not  have  told  him.  He  was 
in  a  kind  of  tranced  dream.  The  self-made  music  was 
calling  with  a  sweet  insistence  to  buried  things  that 
were  stirring  from  a  long  sleep.  It  sent  a  gulp  into  the 
throat  of  more  than  one  standing  moveless  in  the  street. 
It  brought  a  suspicious  moisture  to  Tom  Felder's  eyes. 
It  drew  Mrs.  Halloran  from  the  kitchen,  wiping  her 
hands  on  her  apron.  It  called  to  a  girl  who  crouched  in 

140 


THE    AWAKENING 

the  upper  hall  with  her  miserable  face  buried  in  her 
hands,  drew  her  down  the  stair  to  the  office  door,  her 
eyes  wide  with  a  breathless  wonder,  her  face  glistening 
with  feeling. 

Prom  the  balcony  Jessica  had  witnessed  the  fight 
without  understanding  its  meaning.  A  fascination  she 
could  not  gainsay  had  glued  her  eyes  to  the  struggle. 
It  was  he — it  was  the  face  she  knew,  seen  but  once  for 
a.  single  moment  in  the  hour  of  her  marriage,  but 
scamped  indelibly  upon  her  memory.  It  was  no  longer 
smooth-shaven,  and  it  was  changed,  evilly  changed.  But 
it  was  the  same!  There  was  recklessness  and  mockery 
in  it,  and  yet  strength,  not  weakness.  Shunned  and  de 
spised  as  he  might  be—the  chief  actor,  as  it  seemed  to 
her,  in  a  cheap  and  desperate  bar-room  affray,  a  coarse 
affair  of  fisticuffs  in  the  public  street — yet  there  was 
something  intrepid  in  his  bearing,  something  splendid 
in  his  victory.  In  spite  of  the  sharp,  momentary  sense 
of  antagonism  that  had  bruised  her  inmost  fiber,  when 
the  brutal  bulk  of  his  opponent  fell  she  could  have  wept 
with  relief!  Then,  suddenly,  she  had  found  that  look 
chaining  her  own.  It  had  give*  her  a  strange  thrill, 
had  both  puzzled  and  touched  her.  She  had  dragged  her 
eyes  away  with  a  choking  sensation,  a  sense  of  helpless 
ness  and  capture.  When  the  violin  sounded,  a  resistless 

141 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

rush  of  feeling  had  swept  her  to  the  lower  door,  where 
she  stood  hehind  the  spectators,  spellbound. 

In  the  man  who  played,  weird  forces  were  contending. 
The  feel  of  the  polished  wood  on  his  cheek,  the  odor  of 
the  resined  catgut  in  his  nostrils,  were  plucking,  pluck 
ing  at  the  closed  door.  A  new  note  crept  to  the  strings. 
They  had  spoken  pathos — now  they  told  of  pain.  All 
the  struggle  whose  very  meaning  was  forgotten,  the 
unrequital,  the  baffled  quest,  the  longing  of  that  last 
year  which  had  been  born  of  a  woman's  kiss  in  a  dark 
ened  room,  never  voiced  in  that  lost  life,  poured  forth 
broken,  inarticulate. 

To  Jessica,  standing  with  hands  close-clasped,  it 
seemed  the  agony  of  remorse  for  a  past  fall,  the  cry  of  a 
forlorn  soul,  knowing  itself  cast  out,  appealing  to  its 
good  angel  for  pity  and  pardon.  Hugh  had  often  played 
to  her,  lightly,  carelessty,  as  he  did  all  things.  She  had 
deemed  it  only  one  of  his  many  clever,  amateurish  ac 
complishments.  Now  it  struck  her  with  a  pang  that 
there  had  been  in  him  a  deeper  side  that  she  had  not 
guessed.  Since  her  wedding-day  she  had  thought  of  her 
marriage  as  a  loathed  bond,  from  which  his  false  pre 
tense  had  absolved  her.  Now  a  doubt  of  her  own  position 
assailed  her.  Had  loneliness  and  outlawry  driven  him 
into  the  career  that  had  made  him  shunned  oven  in  this 

142 


THE    AWAKENING 

rough  town — a  course  which  she,  had  she  been  faithful 
to  her  vow  "for  better,  for  worse,"  might  have  turned 
to  his  redemption?  God  forgave,  but  she  had  not  for 
given  !  Smarting  tears  scorched  her  eyelids. 

For  Harry  Sanderson  the  music  was  the  imprisoned 
memory,  crying  out  strongly  in  the  first  tongue  it  had 
found.  But  the  ear  was  alien,  the  mind  knew  no  by-path 
of  understanding.  It  was  a  blind  wave,  feeling  round 
some  under-sea  cavern  of  suffering.  Beneath  the  pres 
sure  the  closed  door  yielded,  though  it  did  not  wholly 
open.  The  past  with  its  memories  remained  hidden,  but 
through  the  rift,  miraculously  called  by  the  melody,  the 
real  character  that  had  been  the  Eeverend  Henry  San 
derson  came  forth.  The  perplexed  phantom  that  had 
been  moving  down  the  natural  declivity  of  resurrected 
predisposition,  fell  away.  The  slumbering  qualities  that 
had  stirred  uneasily  at  sight  of  the  face  on  the  balcony, 
awoke.  Who  he  was  and  had  been  he  knew  no  more  than 
before ;  but  the  new  writhing  self-consciousness,  starting 
from  its  sleep,  with  almost  a  sense  of  shock,  became 
conscious  of  the  gaping  crowd,  the  dusty  street,  the  red 
sunset,  and  of  himself  at  the  end  of  a  vulgar  brawl, 
sawing  a  violin  in  silly  braggadocio  in  a  hotel  doorway. 

The  music  faltered  and  broke  off.  The  bow  dropped 
at  his  feet.  He  picked  it  up  f umblingly  and  turned  back 

143 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

into  the  office,,  as  a  man  entered  from  a  rear  door.  The 
new-comer  was  Michael  Halloran,  the  hotel's  proprietor, 
short,  thick-set  and  surly.  Asleep  in  his  room,  he  had 
neither  seen  the  fracas  nor  heard  the  playing.  He  saw 
instantly,  however,  that  something  unusual  was  forward, 
and,  blinking  on  the  threshold,  caught  sight  of  the  man 
who  was  handing  the  violin  back  to  its  owner.  He 
clenched  his  fist  with  a  scowl  and  started  toward  him. 

His  wife  caught  his  arm. 

"Oh,  Michael,  Michael!"  she  cried.  "Say  nothing, 
lad  !  Ye  should  have  heard  him  play  I" 

"Play  I"  he  exclaimed.  "Let  him  go  fiddle  to  his  side- 
partner  Prendergast  and  the  other  riffraff  he's  run  with 
the  year  past!"  He  turned  blackly  to  Harry.  "Take 
yourself  from  this  house,  Hugh  Stires !"  he  said. 
"Whether  all's  true  that's  said  of  you  I  don't  say,  but 
you'll  not  come  here !" 

Harry  had  turned  very  white.  With  the  spoken  name 
— a  name  how  familiar ! — his  eyes  had  fallen  to  the  ring 
on  his  finger — the  ring  with  the  initials  H.  S.  A  sudden, 
comprehension  had  darted  to  his  mind.  A  score  of  cir 
cumstances  that  had  seemed  odd  stood  out  now  in  a 
baleful  light.  The  looks  of  dislike  in  the  bar-room — the 
attitude  of  the  street — this  angry  diatribe — all  smacked 
of  acquaintance,  and  not  alone  acquaintance,  but  ob- 

144 


THE    AWAKENING 

loquy.  His  name  was  Hugh  Stires  !  He  belonged  to  this 
very  town  !  And  he  was  a  man  hated,  despised,  forbidden 
entrance  to  an  uncouth  hostelry,  an  unwelcome  visitant 
even  in  a  bar-room ! 

An  hour  earlier  the  discovery  would  not  so  have  ap 
palled  him.  But  the  violin  music,  in  the  emergence  of 
the  real  Harry  Sanderson,  had,  as  it  were,  flushed  the 
mind  of  its  turgid  silt  of  devil-may-care  and  left  it 
quick  and  quivering.  He  turned  to  Felder  and  said  in 
a  low  voice — to  him,  not  to  the  hotel-keeper,  or  to  the 
roomful : 

"When  I  entered  this  town  to-day,  I  did  not  know 
my  name,  or  that  I  had  ever  set  foot  in  it  before.  I  was 
struck  by  a  train  a  month  ago,  and  remember  nothing 
beyond  that  time.  It  seems  that  the  town  knows  me 
better  than  I  know  myself." 

Halloran  looked  about  him  with  a  laugh  of  derision 
and  incredulity,  but  few  joined  in  it.  Those  who  had 
heard  the  playing  realized  that  in  some  eerie  way  the 
personality  of  the  man  they  had  known  had  been  altered. 
Before  the  painful,  shocked  intensity  of  his  face,  the 
lawyer  felt  his  instant  skepticism  fraying.  This  was 
little  like  acting !  He  felt  an  inclination  to  hold  out  his 
hand,  but  something  held  him  back. 

•Harry  Sanderson  turned  quietly  and  walked  out  of 
145 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

the  door.  Pavement  and  street  were  a  hubbub  of  ex 
cited  talk.  The  groups  parted  as  he  came  out,  and  he 
passed  between  them  with  eyes  straight  before  him. 

As  he  turned  down  the  street,  a  fragment  of  quartz, 
thrown  with  deliberate  and  venomous  aim,  flew  from 
the  saloon  doorway.  It  grazed  his  head,  knocking  off 
his  hat. 

Tom  Felder  had  seen  the  flying  missile,  and  he  leaped 
to  the  center  of  the  street  with  rage  in  his  heart.  "If  I 
find  out  who  threw  that,"  he  said,  "I'll  send  him  up  for 
it,  so  help  me  God !" 

Harry  stooped  and  picked  up  his  hat,  and  as  he  put 
it  on  again,  turned  a  moment  toward  the  crowd.  Then 
he  walked  on,  down  the  middle  of  the  street,  his  eyes 
glaring,  his  face  white,  into  the  dusky  blue  of  the  fall 
ing  twilight. 


146 


CHAPTER  XVII 

AT  THE  TURN   OF  THE   TRAIL 

The  scene  in  the  hotel  office  had  left  Jessica  in  a 
state  of  mental  distraction  in  which  reason  was  in  abey 
ance.  In  the  confusion  she  had  slipped  into  the  little 
sitting-room  unnoticed,  feeling  a  sense  almost  of  phys 
ical  sickness,  to  sit  in  the  half-light,  listening  to  the 
diminishing  noises  of  the  spilling  crowd.  She  was 
wind-swept,  storm-tossed,  in  the  grip  of  primal  emo 
tions.  The  surprise  had  shocked  her,  and  the  strange 
appeal  of  the  violin  had  disturbed  her  equipoise. 

The  significant  words  of  awakening  spoken  in  the 
office  had  come  to  her  distinctly.  In  their  light  she 
had  read  the  piteous  puzzle  of  that  gaze  that  had  held 
her  motionless  on  the  balcony.  Hugh  had  forgotten 
the  past — all  of  it,  its  crime,  its  penalty.  In  forgetting 
the  past,  he  had  forgotten  even  her,  his  wife !  Yet  in 
some  mysterious  way  her  face  had  been  familiar  to  him ; 
it  had  touched  for  an  instant  the  spring  of  the  befogged 
memory. 

As  she  spurred  through  the  transient  twilight  past 
147 


SATAN    SANDERSON" 

the  selvage  of  the  town  and  into  the  somber  mountain 
slope,  she  struck  the  horse  sharply  with  her  crop.  He 
who  had  entrapped  her,  who  had  married  her  under  the 
shadow  of  a  criminal  act,  who  had  broken  her  future 
writh  his,  when  his  whole  bright  life  had  crashed  down 
in  black  ruin — could  such  a  one  look  as  he  had  looked 
at  her?  Could  he  make  such  music  that  had  wrung 
her  heart? 

All  at  once  the  horse  shied  violently,  almost  unseat 
ing  her.  A  man  was  lying  by  the  side  of  the  road,  toss 
ing  and  muttering  to  himself.  She  forced  the  unwilling 
animal  closer,  and,  leaning  from  the  saddle,  saw  who  it 
was.  In  a  moment  she  was  off  and  beside  the  prostrate 
form,  a  spasm  of  dread  clutching  at  her  throat  at  sight 
of  the  nerveless  limbs,  the  chalky  pallor  of  the  brow, 
the  fever  spots  in  the  cheeks. 

A  wave  of  pity  swept  over  her.  He  was  ill  and  alone ; 
he  could  not  be  left  there — he  must  have  shelter.  She 
looked  fearfully  about  her.  What  could  she  do?  In 
that  town,  whose  intolerance  and  dislike  she  had  seen 
so  actively  demonstrated,  was  there  no  one  who  would 
care  for  him  ?  She  turned  her  head,  listening  to  a  near- 
ing  sound — footsteps  were  plodding  up  the  road.  She 
called,  and  presently  a  pedestrian  emerged  from  the 
half -dark  and  came  toward  her. 

1-18 


AT    THE    TURN    OP    THE    TRAIL 

He  bent  over  the  form  she  showed  him. 

"It's  Stires,"  he  said  with  a  chuckle.  "I  heard  he'd 
come  back."  The  chuckle  turned  to  a  cough,  and  he 
shook  his  head.  "This  is  sad !  You  could  never  believe 
how  I  have  labored  with  the  boy,  but" — he  turned  out 
his  hands — "you  see,  there  is  the  temptation.  It  is  his 
unhappy  weakness." 

Jessica  remembered  the  yellow,  smirking  face  now. 
She  had  passed  him  on  the  day  Tom  Felder  had  walked 
with  her  from  the  Mountain  Valley  House,  and  the 
lawyer  had  told  her  he  lived  in  the  cabin  just  below  the 
Knob,  where  she  so  often  sat.  She  felt  a  quiver  of 
repulsion. 

"He  is  not  intoxicated,"  she  said  coldly.  "He  is  ill. 
You  know  him,  then?" 

"Know  him !"  he  echoed,  and  laughed — a  dry,  cack 
ling  laugh.  "I  ought  to.  And  I  guess  he  knows  me." 
He  shook  the  inert  arm.  "Get  up,  Hugh!"  he  said. 
"It's  Prendergast !" 

There  flashed  through  her  mind  the  phrase  of  the 
surly  hotel-keeper:  "His  side-partner,  Prendergast!" 
Could  it  be?  Had  Hugh  really  lived  in  the  cabin  on 
which  she  had  so  often  peered  down  during  those  past 
weeks  ?  And  with  this  chosen  crony ! 

She  touched  Prendergast's  arm.  "He  is  ill,  I  say," 
149 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

she  repeated.  "He  must  be  cared  for  at  once.  Your 
cabin  is  on  the  hillside,  isn't  it?" 

"His  cabin/'  he  corrected.  "A  rough  place,  but  it  has 
sheltered  us  both.  I  am  but  guide,  philosopher  and 
friend." 

She  bit  her  lips.  "Lift  him  on  my  horse,"  she  said. 
She  stooped  and  put  her  hands  under  the  twitching 
shoulders.  "I  will  help  you.  I  am  quite  strong." 

With  her  aid  he  lifted  the  swaying  form  on  to  the 
saddle  and  supported  it  while  Jessica  led  the  way  up 
the  darkening  road. 

"Here  is  the  cut-off,"  he  said  presently.  "Ah,  you 
know  it!"  for  she  had  turned  into  the  side-path  that 
led  along  the  hill,  under  the  gray,  snake-like  flume — 
the  shortest  route  to  the  grassy  shelf  on  which  the  cabin 
stood. 

The  by-way  was  steep  and  rugged,  and  rhododendron 
clumps  caught  at  her  ankles,  and  once  she  heard  a 
snake  slip  over  the  dry  rustle  of  leaves,  but  she  went  on 
rapidly,  dragging  at  the  bridle,  turning  back  now  and 
then  anxiously  to  urge  the  horse  to  greater  speed.  She 
scarcely  heard  the  offensively  honied  compliments  which 
Prendergast  offered  to  her  courage  and  resource.  Her 
pulses  were  throbbing  unsteadily,  her  mind  in  a  ferment. 

It  seemed  an  eternity  they  climbed ;  in  reality  it  was 
150 


AT    THE    TURN    OF   THE    TRAIL 

scarcely  twenty  minutes  before  they  reached  the  grassy 
knoll  and  the  cabin  whose  crazy  swinging  door  stood 
wide  to  the  night  air.  She  tied  the  horse,  went  in  and  at 
Prendergast's  direction  found  matches  and  lit  a  candle. 
The  bare,  two-room  interior  it  revealed,  was  unkempt 
and  disordered.  Rough  bunks,  a  table  and  a  couple 
of  hewn  chairs  were  almost  its  only  furniture.  The 
window  was  broken  and  the  roof  admitted  sun  and  rain. 
Prendergast  laid  the  man  they  had  brought  on  one  of 
the  bunks  and  threw  over  him  a  shabby  blanket. 

"My  dear  young  lady,"  he  said,  "you  are  a  good  Sa 
maritan.  How  shall  we  thank  you,  my  poor  friend  here 
and  I?" 

Jessica  had  taken  money  from  her  pocket  and  now 
she  held  it  out  to  him.  "He  must  have  a  doctor,"  she 
said.  "You  must  fetch  one." 

The  yellow  eyes  fastened  on  the  bill,  even  while  his 
gesture  protested.  "You  shame  me!"  he  exclaimed. 
"And  yet  you  are  right;  it  is  for  him."  He  folded  it 
and  put  it  into  his  pocket.  "As  soon  as  I  have  built  a 
fire,  I  will  go  for  our  local  medico.  He  will  not  always 
come  at  the  call  of  the  luckless  miner.  All  are  not  so 
charitable  as  you." 

He  untied  her  horse  and  extended  a  hand,  but  she 
mounted  without  his  help.  "He  will  thank  you  one 

151 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

day — this  friend  of  mine/'  he  said,  "far  better  than  I 
can  do." 

"It  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  tell  him/'  she  replied 
frigidly.  "The  sick  are  always  to  be  helped,  in  every 
circumstance." 

She  gave  her  horse  the  rein  as  she  spoke  and  turned 
him  up  the  steep  path  that  climbed  back  of  the  cabin, 
past  the  Knob,  and  so  by  a  narrow  trail  to  the  moun 
tain  road. 

Emmet  Prendergast  stood  listening  to  the  dulling 
hoof-beats  a  moment,  then  reentered  the  cabin.  The 
man  on  the  bunk  had  lifted  to  a  sitting  position,  his 
eyes  were  open,  dazed  and  staring. 

"That's  right,"  the  older  man  said.  "You're  coming 
round.  How  does  it  feel  to  be  back  in  the  old  shebang? 
Can't  guess  how  you  got  here,  can  you  ?  You  were  towed 
on  horseback  by  a  beauty,  Hughey,  my  boy — a  rip-stav 
ing  beauty!  I'll  tell  you  about  it  in  the  morning,  if 
you're  good." 

The  man  he  addressed  made  no  answer ;  his  eyes  were 
on  the  other,  industrious  and  bewildered. 

"I  heard  about  the  row,"  went  on  Prendergast.  "They 
didn't  think  it  was  in  you,  and  neither  did  I."  He 
looked  at  him  cunningly.  "Neither  did  Moreau,  eh,  eh? 
You're  a  clever  one,  Hugh,  but  the  lost-memory  racket 

152 


AT   THE   TURN   OF   THE   TRAIL 

won't  stand  you  in  anything.    You  hadn't  any  call  to 
get  scared  in  the  first  place — /  don't  tell  all  I  know !" 

He  shoved  the  candle  nearer  on  the  table.  "There's  a 
queer  look  in  your  face,  Hugh !"  he  said,  with  a  clumsy 
attempt  at  kindness.  "That  rock  they  threw  must  have 
hurt  you.  Feel  sort  of  dizzy,  eh  ?  Never  mind,  I'll  show 
you  a  sight  for  sore  eyes.  You  went  off  without  your 
share  of  the  last  swag,  but  I've  saved  it  for  you.  Pren- 
dergast  wouldn't  cheat  a  pal !" 

From  a  cranny  in  the  clay-chinked  wall  he  took  a 
chamois-skin  bag.  It  contained  a  quantity  of  gold-dust 
and  small  nuggets,  which  he  poured  into  a  miner's 
scales  on  the  table  and  proceeded  to  divide  in  two  por 
tions.  This  accomplished,  he  emptied  one  of  the  por 
tions  on  to  a  paper  and  pushed  it  out. 

"That's  yours,"  he  said. 

Harry's  eyes  were  on  his  with  a  piercing  intensity 
now,  as  though  they  looked  through  him  to  a  vast  dis 
tance  beyond.  He  was  staring  through  a  gray  mist,  at 
something  far  off  but  significant  that  eluded  his  direct 
vision.  The  board  table,  the  yellow  gold,  the  flickering 
candle-light  recalled  something  horrifying,  in  some 
other  world,  in  some  other  life,  millions  of  ages  ago. 

He  lurched  to  his  feet,  overturning  the  table.  The 
gold-dust  rattled  to  the  floor. 

153 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"Your  deal!"  he  said.  Then  with  a  vague  laugh, -he 
fell  sidewise  upon  the  bunk. 

Emmet  Prendergast  stared  at  him  with  a  look  of 
amazement  on  his  yellow  face.  "He's  crazy  as  a 
chicken !"  he  said. 

He  sat  watching  him  a  while,  then  rose  and  kindled  a 
fire  on  the  unswept  hearth.  From  a  litter  of  cans  and 
dented  utensils  in  a  corner  he  proceeded  to  cook  himself 
supper,  after  which  he  carefully  brushed  up  the  scat 
tered  gold-dust  and  returned  it  all  to  its  hiding-place. 
Lastly  he  rummaged  on  a  shelf  and  found  a  phial ;  this 
proved  to  be  empty,  however,  and  he  set  it  on  the  table. 

"I  guess  you'll  do  well  enough  without  any  pain 
killer,"  he  said  to  himself.  "Doctors  are  expensive. 
Anyway,  I'll  be  back  by  midnight." 

He  threw  more  wood  on  the  fire,  blew  out  the  candle, 
and,  closing  the  door  behind  him,  set  off  down  the  trail 
to  the  town — where  a  faro-bank  soon  acquired  the  bill 
Jessica  had  given  him. 


154 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

THE  STRENGTH  OF  THE  WEAK 

It  was  pitch-dark  when  Jessica  reached  the  sana 
torium,  though  she  went  like  a  whirlwind,  the  chill 
damp  smell  of  the  dewy  balsams  in  her  nostrils,  the  dust 
rising  ghost-like  behind  the  rapid  hoofs.  She  found 
David  Stires  anxious  and  peevish  over  her  late  coming. 

Sitting  beside  him  as  he  ate  his  supper,  and  reading 
to  him  afterward,  she  had  little  time  for  coherent 
thought ;  all  the  while  she  was  maintaining  her  self-con 
trol  with  an  effort.  Since  she  had  ridden  away  that 
afternoon,  she  felt  as  if  years  had  gone  over  her  with  all 
their  changes.  She  was  oppressed  with  a  new  sense  of 
fate,  of  power  beyond  and  stronger  than  herself,  and  her 
mind  was  enveloped  in  a  haze  of  futurity.  She  felt  a 
relief  when  the  old  man  grew  tired  and  was  wheeled  to 
his  bedroom. 

Left  alone,  her  reflections  returned.  She  began  to 
be  tortured.  She  tried  to  read — the  printed  characters 
swam  beyond  her  comprehension.  At  length  she  drew  a 
hood  over  her  head  and  stole  out  on  to  the  wide  porch. 

155 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

It  was  only  nine  o'clock,  and  along  the  gravel  paths 
that  wound  among  the  shrubbery  a  few  dim  forms  were 
strolling — she  caught  the  scent  of  a  cigar  and  the  sound 
of  a  woman's  laugh.  The  air  was  crisp  and  bracing, 
with  a  promise  of  frost  and  painted  leaves.  She  gazed 
down  across  the  dark  gulches  toward  the  town,  a  strag 
gling  design  pricked  in  blinking  yellow  points.  Half 
way  between,  folded  in  the  darkness,  lay  the  green  shelf 
and  the  cabin  to  which  her  thought  recurred  with  a  kind 
of  compulsion. 

Her  eyes  searched  the  darkness  anxiously.  He  had 
seemed  dangerously  ill;  he  might  die,  perhaps.  If  he 
did,  what  would  it  be  for  her,  his  wife,  but  freedom  from 
a  galling  bond?  She  thought  of  the  violin  playing. 
Had  that  been  but  the  soul's  swan-song,  the  last  cry  of 
his  stained  and  desolate  spirit  before  it  passed  from  this 
world  that  knew  its  temptation  and  its  fall?  If  she 
could  only  know  what  the  doctor  had  said ! 

There  was  no  moon,  but  the  stars  were  glowing  like 
tiny,  green-gilt  coals,  and  the  yellow  road  lay  plain  and 
clear.  With  a  sudden  determination  she  drew  her  light 
cloak  closely  about  her,  stepped  down,  sped  across  the 
grass  to  a  footpath,  and  so  to  the  road. 

As  she  ran  on  down  the  curving  stretch  under  the 
trees,  moving  like  a  hastening,  gray  phantom  through  a 

15G 


THE    STRENGTH    OF   THE    WEAK 

purple  world  of  shadows,  the  crackling  slip  of  bank- 
paper  that  lay  in  her  bosom  seemed  to  burn  her  flesh. 
She  was  stealing  away  to  gaze  upon  the  outcast  who 
had  shamed  and  humbled  her — going,  she  knew  not 
why,  with  burning  cheeks  and  hammering  heart. 

She  slipped  through  the  side  trail  to  the  cabin  with 
a  choking  sensation.  She  stole  to  the  window  and 
peered  in — in  the  firelight  she  could  see  the  form  on 
the  bunk,  tossing  and  muttering.  Otherwise  the  place 
was  empty.  She  lifted  the  latch  softly  and  entered. 

The  strained  anxiety  of  Jessica's  look  relaxed  as  she 
gazed  about  her.  She  saw  the  phial  on  the  table — the 
doctor  had  been  there,  then.  If  he  were  in  serious  case, 
Prendergast  would  be  with  him.  She  threw  back  her 
hood,  drew  one  of  the  chairs  to  the  side  of  the  bunk  and 
sat  down,  her  eyes  fixed  on  his  face.  The  weakness  and 
helplessness  of  his  posture  struck  through  and  through 
her.  Two  sides  of  her  were  struggling  in  a  chaotic 
combat  for  mastery. 

"I  hate  you !  I  hate  you  I"  she  said  under  her  breath, 
clenching  her  cold  hand.  "I  must  hate  you !  You  stole 
my  love  and  put  it  under  your  feet!  You  have  dis 
graced  my  present  and  ruined  my  future !  What  if 
you  have  forgotten  the  past — your  crime?  Does  that 
make  you  the  less  guilty,  or  me  the  less  wretched  ?" 

157 


SATAN    SANDEKSOX 

But  withal  a  silent  voice  within  her  gave  the  lie  to 
her  vehemence.  Some  element  of  her  character  that 
had  been  rigid  and  intact  was  crumbling  down.  An 
old,  sweet  something,  that  a  dreadful  mill  had  ground 
and  crushed  and  annihilated,  was  rising  whole  and  un- 
defiled,  superior  to  any  petty  distinction,  regardless  of 
all  that  lifted  combative  in  her  inheritance,  not  to  be 
gainsaid  or  denied. 

She  leaned  closer,  listening  to  the  incoherent  words 
and  broken  phrases  borne  on  the  turbid  channels  of 
fever.  But  she  could  not  link  them  together  into  mean 
ing.  Only  one  name  he  spoke  clearly  over  and  over  again 
— the  name  Hugh  Stires — repeated  with  the  dreary  mo 
notony  of  a  child  conning  a  lesson.  She  noted  the  mark 
across  his  brow.  Before  her  marriage,  in  her  blindness, 
she  had  used  to  wonder  what  it  was  like.  It  was  not  in 
the  least  disfiguring — it  gave  a  touch  of  the  extraordi 
nary.  It  was  so  small  she  did  not  wonder  that  in  that 
ecstatic  moment  of  her  bride's  kiss  she  had  not  seen  it. 

Slowly,  half  fearfully,  she  stretched  out  her  hand  and 
laid  it  on  his.  As  if  at  the  touch  the  mutterings  ceased. 
The  eyes  opened,  and  a  confused,  troubled  look  crept  to 
them.  Then  they  closed  again,  and  the  look  faded  out 
into  a  peace  that  remained. 

Jessica  dropped  to  her  knees  and  buried  her  face  in 
158 


THE   STRENGTH   OF  THE   WEAK 

the  blanket,  burning  and  chilling  with  an  indescribable 
sensation  of  mingled  pain  and  pleasure.  She  scarcely 
knew  what  she  was  thinking.  It  seemed  to  her  that 
his  very  weakness  and  helplessness  voiced  again  the 
something  that  had  sounded  in  the  music  of  the  violin, 
when  the  buried,  forgotten  past  had  cried  out  its  pain 
and  shame  and  plea,  half  unconsciously — to  her!  A 
thrill  ran  through  her,  the  sense  of  moral  power  of  the 
weak  over  the  strong,  of  the  feminine  over  the  mas 
culine. 

A  rising  flush  stained  her  cheeks.  With  a  sudden 
impulse,  and  with  a  guilty  backward  glance,  she  bent 
and  touched  her  lips  to  his  forehead. 

She  drew  back  quickly,  her  face  flooded  with  color, 
caught  her  breath,  then,  drawing  her  hood  over  her 
head,  went  swiftly  to  the  door  and  was  swallowed  up 
in  the  darkness. 


159 


CHAPTER   XIX 

THE  EVIL   EYE 

Harry  Sanderson,  harking  back  from  the  perilous 
pathway  of  fever,  was  to  see  himself  in  the  light  of  re 
awakened  instincts.  The  man  of  no  memories,  in  his 
pointless  wanderings,  had  felt  dissatisfaction,  a  fierce 
resentment,  a  savage  unrest,  but  morally  he  had  not 
suffered.  The  spiritual  elements  of  the  maturer  growth 
had  slept.  At  a  woman's  look  they  had  awakened,  to 
rise  to  full  stature  under  the  strange  spell  of  melody. 
When  the  real,  remorseful  nature,  newly  emerged,  found 
itself  an  object  of  animadversion  and  contempt,  face  to 
face  with  a  past  of  shame  and  reproach,  the  shock  had 
been  profound.  The  stirring  of  the  old  conscience  was 
as  painful  as  is  the  first  gasp  of  air  to  the  drowned  lung. 
It  had  thrown  the  brain  into  a  fover  to  whose  fierce 
onslaught  the  body  had  temporarily  succumbed. 

When,  toward  midnight,  the  fever  ebbed,  he  had 
fallen  into  a  deep  sleep  of  exhaustion,  from  which  he 
opened  his  eyes  next  morning  upon  the  figure  of  Pren- 
dergast,  sitting  pipe  in  mouth  in  the  sunny  doorway. 

160 


THE   EVIL  EYE 

He  lifted  himself  on  his  elbow.  That  crafty  face  had 
been  inexplicably  woven  with  the  delirious  fantasies  of 
his  fever.  Where  and  when  had  he  known  it?  Then 
in  a  great  wave  welled  over  him  the  memory  of  his  last 
conscious  hours — the  scene  in  the  saloon,  the  fight,  the 
music,  the  sudden  appalling  discovery  of  his  name  and 
repute.  He  remembered  the  sickening  wave  of  self- 
disgust,  the  fierce  agony  of  resentment  that  had  beat  in 
his  every  vein  as  he  walked  up  the  darkening  street. 
He  remembered  the  thrown  quartz.  No  doubt  another 
missile  had  struck  home,  or  he  had  been  set  upon, 
kicked  and  pommelled  into  insensibility.  This  old  man 
— a  miner  probably,  for  there  were  picks  and  shovels 
in  the  corner — had  succored  him.  He  had  been  ill, 
there  was  lassitude  in  every  limb,  and  shadowy  recol 
lections  tantalized  him.  As  in  the  garish  day  one  mist 
ily  recalls  a  dream  of  the  night  before,  he  retained  a 
dim  consciousness  of  a  woman's  face — the  face  he  had 
seen  on  the  balcony — leaning  near  him,  bringing  into  a 
painful  disorder  a  sense  of  grateful  coolness,  of  fra 
grance,  and  of  rest. 

He  turned  his  head.  Through  the  window  he  could 
see  the  blue,  ravined  mountain — a  slope  of  verdure 
soaked  in  placid,  yellow  sunshine,  rising  gradually  to 
the  ridge,  peaceful  and  Arcadian. 

161 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

As  he  stared  again  at  the  seated  figure,  the  grim  fact 
reared  like  a  grisly  specter,  deriding,  thrusting  its  hag 
gard  presence  upon  him.  In  this  little  community, 
which  apparently  he  had  forsaken  and  to  which  he  had 
by  chance  returned,  he  stood  a  rogue  and  a  scoundrel,  a 
thing  to  point  the  finger  at  and  to  avoid !  The  question 
that  had  burned  his  brain  to  fire  flamed  up  again.  The 
town  despised  him.  What  had  been  his  career?  How 
had  he  become  a  pariah  ?  And  by  what  miracle  had  he 
been  so  altered  as  to  look  upon  himself  with  loathing  ? 

He  was  dimly  conscious  withal  that  some  funda 
mental  change  had  passed  over  him,  though  how  or 
when  he  could  not  tell.  Some  mysterious  moral  al 
chemy  had  transmuted  his  elements.  What  he  had  been 
he  was  no  more.  He  was  no  longer  even  the  man  who 
had  awakened  in  the  box-car.  Yet  the  debts  of  the 
unknown  yesterday  must  be  paid  in  the  coin  of  the 
known  to-day! 

He  lifted  himself  upright,  dropping  his  feet  to  the 
floor.  At  the  movement  the  man  on  the  doorstep  rose 
quickly  and  came  forward. 

"You're  better,  Hugh,"  he  said.  "Take  it  easy, 
though.  Don't  get  up  just  yet — Fm  going  to  cook  you 
some  breakfast."  He  turned  to  the  hearth,  kicked  the 
smoldering  log-ends  together  and  set  a  saucepan  on 

162 


THE    EVIL   EYE 

them.    "You'll  be  stronger  when  you've  got  something 
between  your  ribs/'  he  added. 

"How  long  have  I  been  lying  here  ?"  asked  Harry. 

"Only  since  last  night.    You've  had  a  f ever." 

"Where  is  my  dog?" 

"Dog?"  said  the  other.    "I  never  knew  you  had  one." 

Harry's  lips  set  bitterly.  It  had  fared  more  hardly, 
then,  than  he.  It  had  been  a  ready  object  for  the  crowd 
to  wreak  their  hatred  upon,  because  it  belonged  to  him 
— because  it  was  Hugh  Stircs'  dog!  He  leaned  back  a 
moment  against  the  cabin  wall,  with  closed  eyes,  while 
Prendergast  stirred  the  heating  mixture,  which  gave 
forth  a  savory  aroma. 

"Is  this  your  cabin,  my  friend  ?" 

The  figure  bending  over  the  hearth  straightened  itself 
with  a  jerk  and  the  blinking  yellow  eyes  looked  hard  at 
him.  Prendergast  came  close  to  the  bunk. 

"That's  the  game  you  played  in  the  town,"  he  said 
with  a  surly  sneer.  "It's  all  right  for  those  that  take  it 
in,  but  you  needn't  try  to  bamboozle  me,  pretending 
you  don't  know  your  own  claim  and  cabin !  I'm  no  such 
fool!" 

A  dull  flush  came  to  Harry's  face.  Here  was  a  page 
from  that  iniquitous  past  that  faced  him.  His  own 
cabin?  And  his  own  claim?  Well,  why  not? 

163 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"You  are  mistaken/'  he  said  calmly.  "I  am  not  pre 
tending.  I  can  not  remember  you." 

Prendergast  laughed  in  an  ugly,  derisive  way.  "I 
suppose  you've  forgotten  the  half-year  we've  lived  here 
together,  and  the  gold-dust  we've  gathered  in  now  and 
again — slipped  it  all,  have  you?" 

Harry  stood  up.  The  motion  brought  a  temporary 
dizziness,  but  it  passed.  He  walked  to  the  door  and 
gazed  out  on  the  pleasant  green  of  the  hillside.  On  a 
tree  near-by  was  nailed  a  rough,  weather-beaten  board 
on  which  was  scrawled  "The  Little  Paymaster  Claim." 
He  saw  the  grass-grown  gravel-trenches,  evidence  of 
abandoned  work.  He  had  been  a  miner.  That  in  itself 
was  honest  toil.  Across  the  waving  foliage  he  could 
look  down  to  the  distant  straggling  street  with  its  hud 
dles  of  houses  and  its  far-off  swinging  signs.  Some  of 
these  signs  hung  above  resorts  of  clicking  wheels  and 
green  baize  tables ;  more  than  once  in  the  past  month  on 
such  tables  he  had  doubled  many  times  over  a  paltry 
stake  with  that  satiric  luck  which  smiles  on  the  uncar 
ing.  His  eye  ran  back  up  the  slope. 

"The  claim  is  good,  then,"  he  said  over  his  shoulder. 
"We  found  the  pay?" 

Prendergast  contemplated  him  a  moment  in  grim 
silence,  with  a  scowl.  "You're  either  really  fuddled, 

164 


THE   EVIL  EYE 

Hugh/'  lie  said  then,  "or  else  you're  a  star  play-actor, 
and  up  to  something  deep.  Well,  have  it  your  own  way 
— it's  all  the  same  to  me.  But  you  can't  pull  the  wool 
over  my  eyes  long !" 

There  was  mockery  and  threat  in  his  tone,  but  more 
than  both,  the  evil  intimacy  in  his  words  gave  Harry  a 
qualm  of  disgust.  This  man  had  been  his  associate. 
That  one  hour  in  the  town  had  shown  him  what  his  own 
life  there  had  been. 

What  should  he  do?  Forsake  for  ever  the  neighbor 
hood  where  he  had  made  his  blistering  mark?  Fling 
all  aside  and  start  again  somewhere  ?  And  leave  behind 
this  disgraceful  present,  with  that  face  that  had  looked 
into  his  from  above  the  dusty  street  ? 

If  fate  intended  that,  why  had  it  turned  him  back? 
Why  had  he  been  plucked  rudely  from  his  purpose  and 
set  once  more  here,  where  every  man's  hand  was  against 
him — every  one  but  this  sorry  comrade?  There  was  in 
him  an  intuitive  obstinacy,  a  steadfastness  under  stress 
which  approved  this  drastic  coercion.  If  such  was  the 
bed  he  had  made,  he  would  lie  in  it.  He  would  drink 
the  gall  and  vinegar  without  whimpering.  Whatever 
lay  behind,  he  would  live  it  down.  This  man  at  least 
had  befriended  him. 

He  turned  into  the  room.  "Perhaps  I  shall  remember 
165 


SATAN   SANDBBSON 

after  a  while."     He  took  the  saucepan  from  Prender- 
gast's  hand.    "I'll  cook  the  breakfast,"  he  said. 

Prendergast  filled  his  pipe  and  watched  him.  "I 
guess  there  are  bats  in  your  belfry,  sure  enough,  Hugh," 
he  said  at  length.  "You  never  offered  to  do  your  stint 
before." 


166 


CHAPTER    XX 

MBS.  HALLORAN  TELLS  A  STORY 

From  the  moment  her  kiss  fell  upon  the  forehead  of 
the  delirious  man  in  the  cabin,  Jessica  began  to  be  a 
prey  to  new  emotions,  the  significance  of  which  she  did 
not  comprehend.  She  was  no  longer  a  child;  she  had 
attained  to  womanhood  on  that  summer's  wedding-day 
that  seemed  so  far  away.  But  her  woman's  heart  was 
untried,  and  it  felt  itself  opening  to  this  new  experience 
with  a  strange  confusion. 

That  kiss,  she  told  herself  that  night,  had  been  given 
to  her  dead  ideal,  that  had  lain  there  in  its  purifying 
grave-clothes  of  forge tfulness.  Yet  it  burned  on  her 
lips,  as  that  other  kiss  in  a  darkened  room  had  burned 
afterward,  but  with  a  sense  of  pleasure,  not  of  hurt.  It 
took  her  back  into  crimson  meadows  with  her  lost 
girlhood  and  its  opaled  outlook — and  Hugh.  Then  the 
warring  emotions  racked  her  again;  she  felt  a  whirl  of 
anger  at  herself,  of  hot  impatience,  of  mortification,  of 
self-pity,  and  of  stifled  longing  for  she  knew  not  what. 

But  largest  of  all  in  her  mind  next  day  was  anxiety. 
167 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

She  must  know  how  he  fared.  In  the  open  daylight  she 
could  not  approach  the  cabin,  but  she  reflected  that  the 
doctor  had  been  there,  and  no  doubt  had  carried  some 
report  of  him  to  the  town.  So,  as  the  morning  grew, 
she  rode  down  the  mountain,  ostensibly  to  get  the  cherry 
cordial  she  had  left  behind  her  the  day  before — really  to 
satisfy  her  hunger  for  news. 

As  it  happened,  Mrs.  Halloran's  first  greeting  set  her 
anxiety  at  rest.  Prendergast  had  bought  some  tobacco 
at  the  general  store  an  hour  before,  while  she  had  been 
making  her  daily  order,  and  the  store-keeper  had  ques 
tioned  him.  Prendergast  had  a  fawning  liking  for  the 
notice  of  his  fellows — save  for  his  saloon  cronies,  few 
enough  in  the  town,  where  it  was  currently  reported  that 
he  had  a  prison  record  in  Arkansas,  ever  exchanged  more 
than  a  nod  with  him — and  he  had  responded  eagerly  to 
the  civil  inquiries.  To  an  interested  audience  he  had 
told  of  the  finding  of  Hugh  on  the  mountain  road  in  a 
sort  of  crazy  fever,  and  enlarged  upon  the  part  the  girl 
on  horseback  had  played.  Hugh  was  all  right  now,  he 
said,  except  that  he  didn't  remember  him,  or  the  cabin, 
or  Smoky  Mountain. 

Here  was  new  interest.  Though  her  name  was  known 
to  few,  Jessica  had  come  to  be  a  familiar  figure  on  the 
streets — she  was  the  only  lady  rider  the  place  knew — 

1G8 


MRS.    HALLORAN   TELLS   A    STORY 

and  the  description  was  readily  recognizable  without  the 
name  which  Mrs.  Halloran  supplied.  In  an  hour  the 
story  had  found  a  hundred  listeners,  and  as  Jessica  rode 
by  that  day,  many  a  passer-by  had  turned  to  gaze  after 
her. 

What  Prendergast  had  said  Mrs.  Halloran  told  her  in 
a  breath.  Before  she  finished  she  found  that  Jessica  had 
not  heard  of  the  incident  in  the  saloon  which  had  pre 
cipitated  the  fight  with  Devlin,  and  with  sympathetic 
rhetoric  Mrs.  Halloran  told  this,  too. 

"He  deserved  it,  ye  see,  dearie/'  she  finished.  "But 
no  less  was  it  a  brave  thing  that — what  ye  did  last  night, 
alone  on  the  mountain  with  them  two,  an'  countin'  yer- 
self  as  safe  as  if  ye  were  in  God's  pocket !  To  hear  that 
scalawag  Prendergast  talk,  he's  been  Hugh  Stires'  good 
angel — the  oily  hypocrite!  An'  do  ye  think  it's  true 
that  he's  lost  his  memory — Stires,  I  mean — an'  don't 
know  nothin'  that's  ever  happened  with  him?  Could 
that  be,  do  ye  think?" 

"I've  often  heard  of  such  a  thing,  Mrs.  Halloran,"  re 
sponded  Jessica.  Her  heart  was  throbbing  painfully. 
"But  why  does  Smoky  Mountain  hate  him  so?  What 
has  he  done  ?" 

Mrs.  Halloran  shook  her  head.  "I  never  knew  any 
thing  myself,"  she  said  judiciously.  "I  reckon  the  town 

169 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

allus  counted  him  just  a  general  low-down.  The  rest  is 
only  suspicion  an'  give  the  dog  a  bad  name." 

There  had  been  comfort  for  Jessica  in  this  interview. 
The  burden  of  that  illness  off  her  mind — she  had  not 
realized  how  great  a  load  this  had  been  till  it  was  lifted 
— she  turned  eagerly  toward  this  rift  in  the  cloud  of  in 
famy  that  seemed  to  envelop  the  reputation  of  the  man 
whose  life  her  own  had  again  so  strangely  touched.  She 
was  feeling  a  new  kinship  with  the  town;  it  was  now 
not  alone  a  spot  upon  which  she  had  loved  to  gaze  from 
the  height;  it  was  the  place  wherein  the  man  she  had 
once  loved  had  lived  and  moved. 

Mrs.  Halloran's  story  had  materially  increased  the 
poignant  force  of  her  pity.  What  had  seemed  to  her  a 
vulgar  brawl,  had  been  in  reality  a  courageous  and  un 
selfish  championship  of  a  defenseless  outcast.  Thinking 
of  this,  the  self-blame  and  contrition  which  she  had  felt 
when  she  listened  to  the  violin  assailed  her  anew,  till  she 
seemed  a  very  part  of  the  guilt,  an  equal  sinner  by 
omission. 

Yet  she  rode  homeward  that  day  with  almost  a  light 
heart. 


170 


CHAPTER   XXI 

A  VISIT  AND  A  VIOLIN 

Prendergast's  first  view  had  been  one  of  suspicion,  but 
this  had  been  shaken,  and  thereafter  he  had  studied 
Harry  with  a  sneering  tolerance.  There  had  been  little 
talk  between  them  during  the  meal  which  the  younger 
man  had  cooked,  taking  the  saucepan  from  the  other's 
hands.  Shrinking  acutely  from  the  details  of  the  dismal 
past  which  he  must  learn,  Harry  had  asked  no  questions 
and  Prendergast  had  maintained  a  morose  silence.  The 
latter  had  soon  betaken  himself  down  the  mountain — 
to  his  audience  in  the  general  store. 

As  Harry  stood  in  the  cabin  doorway,  looking  after 
him,  toward  the  town  glistening  far  below  in  the  morn 
ing  sunlight,  he  thought  bitterly  of  his  reception  there. 

"They  all  knew  me,"  he  thought;  "every  one  knew 
me,  on  the  street,  in  the  hotel.  They  know  me  for  what 
I  have  been  to  them.  Yet  to  me  it  is  all  a  blank  !  What 
shameful  deeds  have  I  done?"  He  shrank  from  mem 
ory  now!  "What  was  I  doing  so  far  away,  where  was 
I  going,  on  the  night  when  I  was  picked  up  beside  the 

171 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

railroad  track  ?  I  may  be  a  drunkard/'  he  said  to  him 
self.  "No,  in  the  past  month  I  have  drunk  hard,  but  not 
for  the  taste  of  the  liquor!  I  may  be  a  gambler — the 
first  thing  I  remember  is  that  game  of  cards  in  the  box 
car  !  I  may  be  a  cheat,  a  thief.  Yet  how  is  it  possible 
for  bad  deeds  to  be  blotted  out  and  leave  no  trace  ?  Ac 
tions  breed  habit,  if  they  do  not  spring  from  it,  and 
habit,  automatically  repeated,  becomes  character.  I  feel 
no  inherent  propensity  to  rob,  or  defraud.  Shall  I? 
Will  these  things  come  back  to  me  if  my  memory  does  ? 
Shall  I  become  once  more  one  with  this  vile  old  man,  my 
'side-partner/  to  share  the  evil  secrets  that  I  see  in  his 
eyes — as  I  must  once  have  shared  them?"  He  shud 
dered. 

There  welled  over  him  again,  full  force,  the  passionate 
resentment,  the  agony  of  protest,  that  had  been  the  gift 
of  the  resuscitated  character.  He  found  himself  fight 
ing  a  wild  desire  to  fling  his  resolution  behind  him  and 
fly  from  his  reputation  and  its  penalties. 

In  the  battle  that  he  fought  now  he  turned,  even  in 
his  weakness,  to  manual  labor,  striving  to  dull  his 
thought  with  mechanical  movement.  He  cleaned  and 
put  to  rights  both  rooms  and  sorted  their  litter  of  odds 
and  ends.  But  at  times  the  inclination  to  escape  be 
came  well-nigh  insupportable.  When  the  conflict  was 

172 


A   VISIT    AND    A   VIOLIN 

fiercest  he  would  think  of  a  girl's  face,  once  seen,  and 
the  thought  would  restrain  him.  Who  was  she?  Why 
had  her  look  pierced  through  him  ?  In  that  hateful  ca 
reer  that  seemed  so  curiously  alien,  could  she  have  had 
a  part? 

He  did  not  know  that  she  of  whom  he  wondered,  in 
the  bitterest  of  those  hours  had  been  very  near  him — that 
on  her  way  up  the  mountain  she  had  stolen  down  to  the 
Knob  to  look  through  the  parted  bushes  to  the  cabin 
with  the  blue  spiral  rising  from  its  chimney.  He  could 
not  guess  that  she  gazed  with  a  strained,  agitated  in 
terest,  a  curiosity  even  more  intense  than  his  own,  the 
look  of  a  heart  that  was  strangely  learning  itself  with 
mingled  and  tremulous  emotions. 

Though  the  homely  task  to  which  he  turned  failed  to 
allay  his  struggle,  by  nightfall  Harry  had  put  the  war 
ring  elements  under.  When  Prendergast  returned  at 
supper-time  the  candle  was  lighted  in  its  wall-box,  the 
dinted  tea-kettle  was  singing  over  a  crackling  fire,  and 
Harry  was  perspiring  over  the  scouring  of  the  last 
utensil. 

Prendergast  looked  the  orderly  interior  over  on  the 
threshold  with  a  contemptuous  amusement.  "Almost 
thought  I  was  in  church,"  he  said.  He  took  off  his  coat 
and  lazily  watched  the  other  cook  the  frugal  evening 

173 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

meal.  "Excuse  my  not  volunteering/'  he  observed; 
"you  do  it  so  nicely  I'm  almost  afraid  you'll  have  an 
other  attack  of  that  forgettery  of  yours,  and  go  back  to 
the  old  line." 

Presently  he  looked  at  the  bunk,  clean  and  springy 
with  fresh  cut  spruce-shoots.  He  went  to  it,  knelt  down 
and  thrust  an  arm  into  the  empty  space  beneath  it.  He 
got  up  hastily. 

"What  have  you  done  with  that  ?"  he  demanded  with 
an  angry  snarl. 

"With  what?"  Harry  turned  his  head,  as  he  set  two 
tin  plates  on  the  bare  table. 

"With  what  was  under  here." 

"There  was  nothing  there  but  an  old  horse  skin,"  said 
Harry.  "It  is  hanging  on  the  side  of  the  cabin." 

With  an  oath  Prendergast  flung  open  the  door  and 
went  outside.  He  reentered  quickly  with  the  white  hide 
in  his  arms,  wrapped  it  in  a  blanket  and  thrust  it  back 
under  the  bunk. 

"Has  any  one  been  here  to-day — since  you  put  it  out 
there  ?"  he  asked  quickly. 

"No,"  said  Harry,  surprised.    "Why?" 

Prendergast  chuckled.  The  chuckle  grew  to  a  guffaw 
and  he  sat  down,  slapping  his  thigh.  Presently  he  went 
to  the  wall,  took  the  chamois-skin  bag  from  its  hiding- 

174 


A   VISIT   AND   A   VIOLIN" 

place  and  poured  some  of  its  yellow  contents  into  his 
palm.  "That's  why.  Do  you  remember  that,  eh  ?" 

Harry  looked  at  it.  "Gold-dust,"  he  said.  "I  seem 
to  recall  that.  I  am  going  to  begin  work  in  the  trench 
to-morrow;  there  should  be  more  where  that  came 
from." 

Prendcrgast  poured  the  gold  back  into  the  bag  with 
a  cunning  look.  The  other  had  asked  for  no  share  of 
it.  At  that  moment  he  decided  to  say  nothing  of  the 
evening  before,  of  the  girl  or  the  horseback  journey — 
lest  Hugh,  cudgelling  his  brains,  might  remember  he 
had  been  offered  a  half.  If  Hugh's  peculiar  craziness 
wanted  to  dig  in  the  dirt,  very  well.  It  might  be  profit 
able  for  them  both.  He  put  the  pouch  into  his  pocket 
with  a  grin. 

"There's  plenty  more  where  that  came  from,  all 
right,"  he  said,  "and  I'll  teach  you  again  how  to  get  it, 
one  of  these  days/5 

Prendergast  said  little  during  the  meal.  When  the 
table  was  cleared  he  lit  his  pipe  and  took  from  a  shelf 
a  board  covered  with  penciled  figures  and  scrutinized  it. 

"Hope  you  remember  how  to  play  old  sledge,"  he  said. 
"When  we  stopped  last  game  you  owed  me  a  little  over 
seventeen  thousand  dollars.  If  you  forget  it  isn't  a  cash 
game  some  day  and  pay  up,  why,  I  won't  kick,"  he  added 

175 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

with  rough  jocularity.  He  threw  a  pack  of  cards  on  to 
the  table  and  drew  up  the  chairs. 

Harry  did  not  move.  As  they  ate  he  had  been  won 
dering  how  long  he  could  abide  that  sinister  presence. 
The  garish  cards  themselves  now  smote  him  with  a 
shrinking  distaste.  As  he  was  about  to  speak  a  knock 
came  at  the  cabin  door  and  Prendergast  opened  it. 

The  visitor  Harry  recognized  instantly;  it  was  the 
man  who  had  called  for  fair  play  at  the  fight  before  the 
saloon,  who  had  drawn  him  into  the  hotel. 

Felder  carried  a  bundle  under  his  arm.  He  nodded 
curtly  to  Prendergast  and  addressed  himself  to  Harry. 

"I  am  the  bearer  of  a  gift  from  some  one  in  the  town," 
he  said.  "I  have  been  asked  to  deliver  this  to  you."  He 
put  the  bundle  into  the  other's  hands. 

Harry  drew  up  one  of  the  chairs  hastily.  "Please  sit 
down,"  he  said  courteously.  He  looked  at  the  bundle 
curiously.  "Et  eos  dona  ferentes"  he  said  slowly.  "A 
gift  from  some  one  in  the  town !" 

A  keen  surprise  flashed  into  the  lawyer's  glance.  "The 
quotation  is  classic,"  he  said,  "but  it  need  not  apply 
here."  He  took  the  bundle,  unwrapped  it  and  disclosed 
a  battered  violin.  "Let  me  explain,"  he  continued.  "For 
the  owner  of  this  you  fought  a  battle  yesterday.  You 
tested  its  tone  a  little  later — it  seems  that  you  are  a  mas- 

176 


A   VISIT   AND    A   VIOLIN 

ter  of  the  most  difficult  of  instruments.  There  was  a 
time,  I  believe,  when  the  old  man  was  its  master  also; 
he  was  once,  they  say,  the  conductor  of  an  orchestra  in 
San  Francisco.  Drink  and  the  devil  finally  brought  him' 
down.  For  three  years  past  he  has  lived  in  Smoky 
Mountain.  Nobody  knows  his  name — the  town  has  al 
ways  called  him  'Old  Despair/  You  did  him  what  is 
perhaps  the  first  real  kindness  he  has  ever  known  at  its 
hands.  He  has  done  the  only  thing  he  could  to  re 
quite  it." 

Harry  had  colored  painfully  as  Felder  began  to  speak. 
The  words  brought  back  that  playing  and  its  strange  re 
juvenescence  of  emotion,  with  acute  vividness.  His  voice 
was  unsteady  as  he  answered : 

"I  appreciate  it — I  am  deeply  grateful — but  it  is  quite 
impossible  that  I  accept  it  from  him." 

"You  need  not  hesitate,"  said  the  lawyer.  "Old  De 
spair  needs  it  no  longer.  He  died  last  night  in  Devlin's 
dance-hall,  where  he  played — when  he  was  sober  enough 
— for  his  lodging.  I  happened  to  be  near-by,  and  I  as 
sure  you  it  was  his  express  wish  that  I  give  the  violin 
to  you." 

Eising,  he  held  out  his  hand.  "Good  night,"  he  said. 
"I  hope  your  memory  will  soon  return.  The  town  is 
much  interested  in  your  case." 

177 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

The  flush  grew  deeper  in  Harry's  cheek,  though  he 
saw  there  was  nothing  ironical  in  the  remark.  "I 
scarcely  hope  so  much,"  he  replied.  "I  am  learning  that 
f orgetfulness  has  its  advantages." 

As  the  door  closed  behind  the  visitor,  Prendergast 
kicked  the  chair  back  to  the  table. 

"You're  getting  on !"  he  sneered,  his  oily  tone  forgot 
ten.  "Damn  his  impertinence !  He  didn't  offer  to  shake 
with  me  !  Come  on  and  play." 

Harry  opened  the  door  again  and  sat  down  on  the  cool 
step,  the  violin  in  his  hands. 

"I  think  I  don't  care  for  the  cards  to-night,"  he  said. 
"I'd  rather  play  this." 


178 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  PASSING  OF  PRENDERGAST 

The  little  town  had  been  unconsciously  grateful  for 
its  new  sensation.  The  return  of  Hugh  Stires  and  his 
apparent  curious  transformation  was  the  prime  subject 
of  conversation.  For  a  half-year  the  place  had  known 
but  one  other  event  as  startling:  that  was  the  finding, 
some  months  before,  of  a  dead  body — that  of  a  compara 
tive  stranger  in  the  place — thrust  beneath  a  thicket  on 
Smoky  Mountain,  on  the  very  claim  which  now  held 
Prendergast  and  his  partner. 

The  "Amen  Corner"  of  the  Mountain  Valley  House 
had  discussed  the  pros  and  cons  exhaustively.  There 
were  many  who  sneered  at  the  loss  of  memory  and  took 
their  cue  from  Devlin  who,  smarting  from  his  humilia 
tion  and  nursing  venom,  revamped  suspicions  wherever 
he  showed  his  battered  face.  In  his  opinion  High  Stires 
was  "playing  a  slick  game." 

"Your  view  is  colored  by  your  prejudices,  Devlin," 
said  Felder.  "He's  been  a  blackleg  in  the  past — granted. 

179 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

But  give  the  devil  his  due.  As  for  the  other  ugly  tale, 
there's  no  more  evidence  against  him  than  there  is 
against  you  or  me !" 

"They  didn't  find  the  body  on  my  ground/'  had  been 
the  other's  surly  retort,  "and  I  didn't  clear  out  the  day 
before,  either!" 

The  phenomenon,  however,  whether  credited  or  pooh- 
poohed,  was  a  drawing  card.  More  than  a  few  found 
occasion  to  climb  the  mountain  by  the  hillside  trail  that 
skirted  the  lonely  cabin.  These,  as  likely  as  not,  saw 
Prendergast  lounging  in  the  doorway  smoking,  while  the 
younger  man  worked,  leading  a  trench  along  the  brow 
of  the  hill  to  bring  the  water  from  its  intake — which 
Harry's  quick  eye  had  seen  was  practicable — and  digging 
through  the  shale  and  gravel  to  the  bed-rock,  to  the 
sparse  yellow  grains  that  yielded  themselves  so  grudg 
ingly.  Some  of  the  pedestrians  nodded,  a  few  passed  the 
time  of  day,  and  to  each  Harry  returned  his  exact  coin 
of  salutation. 

The  spectacle  of  Hugh  Stires,  who  had  been  used  to 
pass  his  days  in  the  saloons  and  his  nights  in  even  less 
becoming  resorts,  turned  practical  miner,  added  a  touch 
of  opera  bouffe  to  the  situation  that,  to  a  degree,  modu 
lated  the  rigor  of  dispraise.  It  was  the  consensus  of 
opinion  that  the  new  Hugh  Stires  seemed  vastly  differ- 

180 


THE    PASSING    OF    PRENDERGAST 

ent  from  the  old;  thai  if  he  were  "playing  a  game,"  it 
was  a  curious  one. 

The  casual  espionage  Prendergast  observed  with  a 
scowl,  as  he  watched  Harry's  labors — when  he  was  at  the 
cabin,  for  after  the  first  few  days  he  spent  most  of  his 
time  in  haunts  of  his  own  in  the  town,  returning  only  at 
meal-time,  gruff  and  surly.  Harry,  however,  recognized 
nothing  unusual  in  the  curious  glances.  He  worked  on, 
intent  upon  his  own  problem  of  dark  contrasts. 

On  the  one  side  was  a  black  record,  exemplified  in 
Prendergast,  clouded  infamy,  a  shuddering  abhorrence 
of  his  past  self  as  he  saw  it  through  the  pitiless  lens  of 
public  opinion;  on  the  other  was  a  grim  constancy  of 
purpose,  a  passionate  wish  to  reconstruct  the  warped 
structure  of  life  of  which  he  found  himself  the  tenant, 
days  of  healthful,  peace-inspiring  toil,  a  woman'g  face 
that  threaded  his  every  thought.  As  he  wielded  his  pick 
in  the  trench  or  laboriously  washed  out  the  few  glisten 
ing  grains  that  now  were  to  mean  his  daily  sustenance, 
he  turned  often  to  gaze  up  the  slope  where,  set  in  its  foli 
age,  the  glass  roof  of  the  sanatorium  sparkled  softly 
through  the  Indian  haze.  Strange  that  the  sight  should 
mysteriously  suggest  the  face  that  haunted  him! 

Emmet  Prendergast  saw  the  abstracted  regard  as  he 
181 


SATAX    SANDERSON 

came  up  the  trail  from  the  town.  He  was  in  an  ugly 
humor.  The  bag  of  gold-dust  which  he  had  shown  to 
Harry  he  had  not  returned  to  the  hiding-place  in  the 
wall,  and  with  this  in  his  pocket  the  faro-table  had  that 
day  tempted  him.  The  pouch  was  empty  now. 

Harry's  back  was  toward  him,  and  the  gold-pan  in 
which  he  had  been  washing  the  gravel  lay  at  his  feet. 
With  a  noiseless,  mirthless  laugh  Prendergast  stole  into 
the  cabin  and  reached  down  from  the  shelf  the  bottle 
into  which  each  day  Harry  had  poured  his  scanty  find 
ings.  He  weighed  it  in  his  hand — almost  two  ounces,  a 
little  less  than  twenty  dollars.  He  hastily  took  the 
empty  bag  from  his  pocket. 

But  just  then  a  shadow  darkened  the  doorway  and 
Harry  entered.  He  saw  the  action,  and,  striding  for 
ward,  took  the  bottle  from  the  other's  hand. 

Prendergast  turned  on  him,  a  sinister  snarl  under  his 
affectation  of  surprise.  "Can't  you  attend  to  your  own 
rat-killing?"  he  growled.  "I  guess  I've  got  a  right  to 
what  I  need." 

"Not  to  that,"  said  Harry  quietly.  "We  shall  touch 
the  bottom  of  the  flour  sack  to-morrow.  You  expect  to 
get  your  meals  here,  I  presume." 

"I  still  look  forward  to  that  pleasure,"  answered 
Prendergast  with  an  evil  sneer.  "Three  meals  a  day 

182 


THE    PASSING    OF    PKENDEEGAST 

and  a  rotten  roof  over  my  head.  When  I  think  of  the 
little  I  have  done  to  deserve  it,  the  hospitality  overcomes 
me!  All  I  have  done  is  to  keep  you  from  starving  to 
death  and  out  of  quod  at  the  same  time.  I  only  taught 
you  a  safe  way  to  beat  the  game — an  easier  one  than  you 
seem  to  know  now — and  to  live  on  Easy  Street  I" 

"I  am  looking  for  no  easy  way/'  responded  Harry, 
"whatever  you  mean  by  that.  I  expect  to  earn  my  living 
as  I'm  earning  it  now — it's  an  honest  method,  at  all 
events." 

"You've  grown  all-fired  particular  since  you  lost  your 
memory,"  retorted  Prendergast,  his  eyes  narrowing. 
"You'll  be  turning  dominie  one  of  these  days !  Perhaps 
you  expect  to  get  the  town  to  take  up  with  you,  and  to 
make  love  to  the  beauty  in  the  green  riding-habit  that 
brought  you  here  on  her  horse  the  night  you  were  out 
of  your  head !" 

Harry  started.  "What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked 
thickly. 

Prendergast's  oily  manner  was  gone  now.  His  savage 
temper  came  uppermost. 

"I  forgot  you  didn't  know  about  that,"  he  scoffed.  "I 
made  a  neat  story  of  it  in  the  town.  They've  been  gab 
bling  about  it  ever  since." 

Harry  caught  his  breath.  As  through  a  mist  he  saw 
183 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

again  that  green  habit  on  the  hotel  balcony — that  face 
that  had  haunted  his  waking  consciousness.  It  had  not 
been  Prendergast  alone,  then,  who  had  brought  him  here. 
And  her  act  of  charity  had  been  made,  no  doubt,  a  thing 
for  the  tittering  of  the  town,  cheapened  by  chatter,  coars 
ened  by  joke ! 

"I  wonder  if  she'd  done  it  if  she'd  known  all  I  know," 
continued  the  other  malevolently.  "You'd  better  go  up 
to  the  sanatorium,  Hugh,  and  give  her  a  nice  sweet  kiss 
for  it!" 

A  lust  of  rage  rose  in  Harry's  throat,  but  he  choked 
it  down.  His  hand  fell  like  iron  on  Prendergast's  shoul 
der,  and  turned  him  forcibly  toward  the  open  door. 
His  other  hand  pointed,  and  his  suppressed  voice  said : 

"This  cabin  has  grown  too  small  for  us  both.  The 
town  will  suit  you  better." 

Prendergast  shrank  before  the  wrath-whitened  face, 
the  dangerous  sparkle  in  the  eyes.  "You've  got  through 
with  me,"  he  glowered,  "and  you  think  you  can  go  it 
alone."  The  old  suspicion  leaped  in  the  malicious  coun 
tenance.  "Well,  it  won't  pay  you  to  try  it  yet.  I  know 
too  much  !  Do  you  understand?  7  know  too  much!" 

Harry  went  out  of  the  cabin.  At  the  door  he  turned. 
"If  there  is  anything  you  own  here,"  he  said,  "take  it 
with  you.  You  needn't  be  here  when  I  come  back." 

184 


THE    PASSING   OF   PREHDEBGAST 

His  fingers  shaking  with  the  black  rage  in  his  heart, 
Prendergast  gathered  his  few  belongings,  rolled  them 
in  the  white  horse-skin  which  he  drew  from  beneath  his 
bunk,  and  wrapped  the  whole  in  a  blanket.  He  fastened 
the  bundle  in  a  pack-strap,  slung  it  over  his  shoulder, 
and  left  the  cabin.  Harry  was  seated  on  one  of  the 
gravel-heaps,  some  distance  away,  looking  out  over  the 
valley,  his  back  toward  him.  As  he  took  the  steep  path 
leading  toward  the  little  town  Prendergast  shot  the 
figure  an  envenomed  look. 

"What's  your  scheme,  I  wonder  ?"  he  muttered  darkly. 
"Whatever  it  is,  I'll  find  out,  never  fear !  And  if  there's 
anything  in  it,  you'll  come  down  from  that  high  horse !" 
He  settled  his  burden  and  went  rapidly  down  the  trail, 
turning  over  in  his  mind  his  future  schemes. 

As  it  chanced,  there  was  one  who  saw  his  vindictive 
face.  Jessica,  crouched  on  the  Knob,  had  seen  him  come 
and  now  depart,  pack  on  back,  and  guessed  that  the 
pair  had  parted  company.  Her  whole  being  flamed  with 
sympathy.  She  could  see  his  malignant  scowl  plainly 
from  where  she  leaned,  screened  by  the  bushes.  It  ter 
rified  her.  What  had  passed  between  them  in  the  cabin  ? 
She  left  the  Knob  wondering. 

All  that  evening  she  was  ill  at  ease.  At  midnight, 
sleepless,  she  was  looking  out  from  her  bedroom  window 

185 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

across  the  phantom-peopled  shadows,  where  on  the  face 
of  the  pale  sky  the  stars  trembled  like  slow  tears.  Anx 
iety  and  dread  were  in  her  heart;  a  pale  phantom  of 
fear  seemed  lurking  in  the  shadows;  the  night  was  full 
of  dread. 


186 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

A   KACE   WITH   DEATH 

On  the  day  following  the  expulsion  of  Prendergast, 
Harry  woke  restless  and  unrefreshed.  Fleeting  sensa 
tions  mocked  him — a  disturbing  conviction  that  the 
struggling  memory  in  some  measure  had  succeeded  in 
reasserting  itself  in  the  shadowy  kingdom  of  sleep. 
Waking,  the  apparitions  were  fled  again  into  their  ob 
scurity,  leaving  only  the  wraiths  of  recollection  to 
startle  and  disquiet. 

A  girl's  face  hovered  always  before  him — ruling  his 
consciousness  as  it  had  ruled  his  sleeping  thought.  "Is 
it  only  fancy  ?"  he  asked  himself.  "Or  is  it  more  ?  It 
was  there — my  memory — in  shreds  and  patches,  on  my 
sleep ;  now  when  I  wake,  it  is  only  the  fraying  mist  of 
dreams.  .  .  .  Dreams !"  He  drew  a  deep  breath. 
"Yet  the  overmastering  sense  of  reality  remains.  Last 
night  I  walked  in  intimate,  forgotten  ways — and  she 
was  in  them — she  !"  He  flushed,  an  odd,  sensitive  flush. 
"Dreams  !"  he  said.  "All  dreams  and  fancies  I" 

At  length  he  took  down  from  its  shelf  the  bottle  he 
187 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

had  rescued  from  Prendergast's  intention  and  emptied 
it  of  its  glistening  grains — enough  to  replenish  his  de 
pleted  stock  of  provisions.  He  paused  a  moment  as  he 
put  on  his  hat,,  smiling  whimsically,  a  little  sadly.  He 
dreaded  entering  the  town.  But  there  could  be  no 
remedy  in  concealment.  If  he  was  to  live  and  work 
there,  appear  he  must  on  the  streets  sooner  or  later. 
Smoky  Mountain  must  continue  to  think  of  him  as  it 
might;  what  he  was  from  that  time  on,  was  all  that 
could  count  to  him. 

If  he  had  but  known  it,  there  was  good  reason  for 
hesitation  to-day.  Early  that  morning  an  angry  rumor 
had  disturbed  the  town;  the  sluice  of  the  hydraulic 
company  had  been  robbed  again.  Some  two  months 
previously  there  had  occurred  a  series  of  depredations 
by  which  the  company  had  suffered.  The  boxes  were 
not  swept  of  their  golden  harvest  each  day,  and  in  spite 
of  all  precautions,  coarse  gold  had  disappeared  mysteri 
ously  from  the  riffles — this,  although  armed  men  had 
watched  all  night.  There  had  been  much  guess-work. 
The  cabin  on  the  hillside  was  the  nearest  habitation — 
the  company's  flume  disgorged  its  flood  in  the  gulch 
beneath  it — and  suspicion  had  eventually  pointed  its 
way.  The  sudden  ceasing  of  the  robberies  with  the 
disappearance  of  Hugh  Stires  had  given  focus  to  this 

188 


A    EACE    WITH    DEATH 

suspicion.  Now,  almost  coincident  with  his  return,  the 
thievery  had  recommenced.  It  had  been  a  red-letter  day 
for  Devlin  and  his  ilk  who  cavilled  at  the  more  charita 
ble.  Of  all  this,  however,  the  object  of  their  "I-told- 
you-so"  was  serenely  ignorant. 

As  Harry  walked  briskly  down  the  mountain,  a  feel 
ing  of  unreality  stole  upon  him*  The  bell  was  ringing 
in  the  steeple  of  the  little  Catholic  church  below,  and 
the  high  metallic  sound  came  to  him  with  a  mysterious 
and  potential  familiarity.  With  the  first  note,  his  hand 
in  his  pocket  closed  upon  an  object  he  always  carried — 
the  little  gold  cross  he  had  found  there  when  he  awak 
ened  in  the  freight*car,  the  only  token  he  possessed  of 
his  vanished  past.  More  than  once  it  had  been  laid  for 
a  mascot  on  the  faro-table  or  the  roulette-board  with 
his  last  coin.  Always  it  had  brought  the  stake  back,  till 
he  had  gained  a  whimsical  belief  in  its  luck. 

He  drew  it  out  now  and  looked  at  it.  "Strange  that 
the  sound  of  a  bell  always  reminds  me  of  that,"  he  mut 
tered.  "Association  of  ideas,  I  fancy,  since  there  is  a 
cross  on  the  church  steeple.  And  what  is  there  in  that 
bell?  It  is  a  faint  sound  even  from  here,  yet  night 
after  night,  up  there  in  the  cabin,  that  far-off  peal  has 
waked  me  suddenly  from  sleep.  Why  is  it,  I  wonder  ?" 

Entering  the  town,  there  were  few  stirring  on  the 
189 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

sunny  streets,  but  he  could  not  but  be  aware  that  those 
he  met  stopped  to  gaze  after  him.  Some,  indeed,  fol 
lowed.  His  first  objective  point  was  a  jeweler's,  where 
he  could  turn  his  gold-dust  into  readier  coin  for  needful 
purchases.  He  saw  a  sign  next  the  Mountain  Valley 
House,  and  entered. 

The  jeweler  weighed  the  dust  with  a  distrustful 
frown,  but  Harry's  head  was  turned  away.  He  was 
reading  a  freshly  printed  placard  tacked  on  the  wall — 
an  offer  of  reward  for  the  detection  of  the  sluice  thief. 
He  read  it  through  mechanically,  for  as  he  read  there 
came  from  the  street  outside  a  sound  that  touched  a 
muffled  chord  in  his  brain.  It  was  the  exhaust  of  a 
motor-car. 

He  thrust  the  money  the  goldsmith  grudgingly 
handed  him  into  his  pocket  and  turned  to  the  door.  A 
long  red  automobile  had  stopped  at  the  curb.  Two  men 
whom  it  carried  were  just  entering  the  hotel. 

Harry  had  seen  many  such  machines  in  his  wander 
ings,  and  they  had  aroused  no  baffling  instinct  of  habi 
tude.  But  the  old  self  was  stirring  now,  every  sense 
alert.  Hour  by  hour  he  had  found  himself  growing 
more  delicately  susceptible  to  subtle  mental  impressions, 
haunted  by  shadowy  reminders  of  things  and  places. 
Something  in  the  sight  of  the  long,  low  "racer"  re- 

190 


A   RACE    WITH    DEATH 

minded  him — of  what?  His  eye  traced  its  polished 
lines,  noting  its  cunning  mechanism,  its  build  for  silent 
speed,  with  the  eager  lighting  of  a  connoisseur.  He 
took  a  step  toward  it,  oblivious  to  all  about  him. 

He  did  not  note  that  men  were  gathering,  that  the 
nearest  saloon  was  emptying  of  its  occupants.  Nor  did 
he  see  a  girl  on  horseback,  with  a  tiny  child  before  her 
on  the  saddle,  who  reined  up  sharply  opposite. 

The  rider  was  Jessica;  the  child,  an  ecstatic  five- 
year-old  she  had  picked  up  on  the  fringe  of  the  town, 
to  canter  in  with  her  hands  gripping  the  pommel  of  the 
saddle.  She  saw  Harry's  position  instantly  and  guessed 
it  perilous.  What  did  the  men  mean  to  do  ?  She  leaned 
forward,  a  swift  apprehension  in  her  face. 

Harry  came  back  suddenly  to  a  realization  of  his  sur 
roundings.  He  looked  about  him,  startled,  his  cheek 
darkening  its  red,  every  muscle  instinctively  tightening. 
He  saw  danger  in  the  lowering  faces,  and  the  old  lust 
of  daring  leaped  up  instantly  to  grapple  with  the 
rejuvenated  character. 

Devlin's  voice  came  over  the  heads  of  the  crowd  as, 
burly  and  shirt-sleeved,  he  strode  across  the  street: 

"Hand  over  the  dust  you've  stolen  before  you  are 
tarred  and  feathered,  Hugh  Stires !" 

Harry  looked  at  him  surprised,  his  mind  instantly 
191 


SATAN   SANDERSON" 

recurring  to  the  placard  he  had  seen.  Here  was  a  tangi 
ble  accusation, 

"I  have  stolen  nothing, "  he  responded  quietly. 

"Where  did  he  get  what  he  just  sold  me  ?"  The  jew 
eler's  sour  query  rose  behind  him  from  the  doorway. 

"We'll  find  that  out !"  was  the  rough  rejoinder. 

In  face  of  his  threatening  peril,  Jessica  forgot  all 
else — the  restive  horse,  the  child.  She  sprang  to  the 
ground,  her  face  pained  and  indignant,  and  started  to 
run  across  the  street.  But  with  a  cry  of  dismay  she 
turned  back.  The  horse  had  caught  sight  of  the  red 
automobile,  and,  snorting  and  wild-eyed,  had  swung 
into  the  roadway. 

"It's  Devlin's  kid !"  some  one  cried  out,  and  Devlin, 
turning,  went  suddenly  ashen.  The  baby  was  the  one 
soft  spot  in  his  ruffianly  heart.  He  sprang  toward  the 
animal,  but  the  movement  and  the  hands  clutching  at 
the  bridle  sent  it  to  a  leaping  terror.  In  another 
instant  it  had  broken  through  the  ring  of  bystanders, 
and,  frenzied  at  its  freedom,  dashed  down  the  long, 
level  street  with  the  child  clinging  to  the  saddle-pommel. 

It  was  all  the  work  of  a  moment,  one  of  panic  and 
confusion,  through  which  rang  Jessica's  scream  of 
remorse  and  fright.  Torpor  held  the  crowd — all  save 
one,  whose  action  followed  the  scream  as  leap  follows 

193 


A   EACE   WITH   DEATH 

the  spur.  In  a  single  step  Harry  gained  the  automobile. 
With  an  instantaneous  movement  he  pushed  the  lever 
down  and  jerked  the  throttle  wide.  The  machine 
bounded  into  its  pace,  the  people  rolling  back  before  it, 
and,  gathering  headway,  darted  after  the  runaway. 

The  spectators  stood  staring.  "He'll  never  Catch 
him,"  said  Michael  Halloran,  who  had  joined  the  crowd. 
"Funeral  Hollow's  only  a  mile  away."  With  others  he 
hurried  to  the  hotel  balcony,  where  he  could  watch  the 
exciting  race.  Jessica  stood  stock-still,  as  blanched  as 
Devlin,  wringing  her  hands. 

Harry  Sanderson  had  acted  with  headlong  intention, 
without  calculation,  almost  without  consciousness  of 
mental  process.  Standing  on  the  pavement,  with  the 
subtle  lure  of  the  motor  creeping  in  his  veins,  his  whole 
body  responding— as  his  fingers  had  tingled  at  sight  of 
the  violin — to  the  muffled  vibrations  of  that  halted  bun 
dle  of  steel,  in  the  sharp  exigency  he  had  answered  an 
overmastering  impulse.  In  the  same  breath  he  had  real 
ized  Jessica's  presence  and  the  child's  peril,  both  linked 
in  that  anguished  cry.  With  the  first  bound  of  the  Car 
under  him,  as  the  crowd  was  snatched  behind,  a  weird, 
exultant  thrill  shot  through  every  nerve.  Each  bolt 
and  bar  he  knew  as  one  would  tell  his  fingers.  Some 
where,  at  some  time,  he  had  known  such  flight— -through 

193 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

mellow  sunlight,  with  the  air  singing  past.  Where? 
When? 

Not  for  the  fraction  of  a  second,  however,  did  his  gaze 
waver.  He  knew  that  the  flat  on  which  the  town  was 
built  fell  away  in  a  hollow  ravine  to  the  southward — he 
could  see  it  from  the  cabin  doorway — a  stretch  of  break 
neck  road  only  a  mile  ahead.  Could  the  child  hold  on  ? 
Could  he  distance  those  frenzied  hoofs  in  time?  The 
arrow  of  the  indicator  stole  forward  on  the  dial. 

Far  behind,  as  the  crowd  watched,  a  cry  rose  from  the 
hotel  balcony.  It  was  Barney  McGinn,  the  freighter, 
with  a  glass  at  his  eye.  "He's  gaining!"  he  shouted. 
"He  has  almost  overtaken  the  horse !" 

The  horse's  first  fury  of  speed  was  tiring.  The  steel 
steed  was  creeping  closer.  A  thunder  of  hoofs  in 
pursuit  would  have  maddened  the  flying  animal,  but 
the  gliding  thing  that  was  now  so  close  to  him  came  on 
with  noiseless  swiftness.  Harry  had  reserved,  with  the 
nicety  of  a  practised  hand,  a  last  increment  of  speed. 
With  the  front  wheels  at  the  horse's  flank,  he  drew  sud 
denly  on  this.  As  the  car  responded,  he  swerved  it 
sharply  in,  and,  holding  with  one  hand,  leaned  far  out 
from  the  step,  and  lifted  the  child  from  the  saddle. 

The  automobile  halted  again  before  the  hotel  amid  a 
hush.  The  men  who  a  little  while  before  had  been  ripe 

194 


A   EACE    WITH    DEATH 

for  violence,  now  stood  in  shamefaced  silence.  It  was 
Jessica  who  ran  forward  and  took  the  child,  still  sob 
bing  a  little,  from  Harry's  hands.  One  long  look 
passed  between  them — a  look  on  her  part  brimming 
with  a  great  gratitude  for  his  lifting  of  her  weight  of 
dread  and  compunction,  and  with  something  besides 
that  mantled  her  cheeks  with  rich  color.  She  kissed 
the  child  and  placed  her  in  her  father's  arms. 

Devlin's  countenance  broke  up.  He  struggled  to 
speak,  but  could  not,  and,  burying  his  face  in  the  child's 
dress  and  crying  like  a  baby,  he  crossed  the  street  hastily 
to  his  own  door. 

Harry  stepped  to  the  pavement  with  a  dull  kind  of 
embarrassment  at  the  manifold  scrutiny.  He  had  mis 
construed  Jessica's  flushing  silence,  and  the  inference 
stung.  The  fierce  zest  was  gone,  and  the  rankling  barb 
of  accusation  smarted.  He  should  apologize  to  the 
owner,  he  reflected  satirically,  for  helping  himself  to 
the  automobile — he  who  stole  gold-dust,  he  at  whose 
door  the  town  laid  its  unferreted  thieveries!  He  who 
was  the  scapegoat  for  the  town's  offenses ! 

That  owner,  in  very  fact,  stood  just  then  in  the  hotel 
doorway  regarding  him  with  interest.  He  was  the 
sheriff  of  the  county.  He  was  about  to  step  forward, 
when  an  interruption  occurred.  A  scuffle  and  a  weak 

195 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

bark  sounded,  and  a  lean  brown  streak  shot  across  the 
pavement. 

"Bummy !"  cried  Harry.    "Rummy !" 

Through  some  chink  of  the  dead  wall  in  his  brain  the 
name  slipped  out,  a  tiny  atom  of  flotsam  retrieved  from 
the  wreck  of  memory.  That  was  all,  but  to  the  animal 
which  had  just  found  its  lost  master,  the  word  meant  a 
sublimation  of  delight,  the  clearing  of  the  puzzle  of 
namelessness  that  had  perplexed  its  canine  brain.  The 
dog's  heaven  was  reached ! 

Down  on  his  knees  on  the  pavement  went  Harry, 
with  his  arms  about  the  starved,  palpitating  little  crea 
ture,  and  his  cheek  against  its  shaggy  coat.  In  another 
moment  he  had  picked  it  up  in  his  arms  and  was  walk 
ing  up  the  street. 

Late  that  night  Tom  Felder,  sitting  in  his  office, 
heard  the  story  of  the  runaway  from  the  sheriff's  lips. 
He  himself  had  been  in  court  at  the  time. 

"And  the  horse?"  he  asked. 

"In  the  Hollow,  with  his  back  broken,"  said  the 
sheriff. 

The  lawyer  sprang  from  his  chair.  "Good  God !"  he 
exclaimed.  "How  can  a  man  like  that  ever  have  been 
a  scoundrel?" 

The  sheriff  relit  his  dead  cigar  reflectively.  "It's  a 
196 


A   RACE   WITH   DEATH 

curious  thing,"  he  said.  "They  are  saying  on  the  street 
that  he's  sent  Prendergast  packing.  He'll  have  to  watcli 
out — the  old  tarantula  will  sting  him  if  he  can !" 

Harry  Sanderson  went  back  to  his  cabin  with  a 
strange  feeling  of  exaltation  and  disappointment — ex 
altation  at  the  recurrence  of  something  of  his  old  adven 
tures,  disappointment  at  the  flushed  silence  with  which 
Jessica,  had  received  the  child. 


197 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

ON   SMOKY   MOUNTAIN 

Jessica  bore  back  from  the  town  that  afternoon  a 
spirit  of  tremulous  gladness.  In  the  few  moments  of 
that  thrilling  ride  and  rescue,  a  mysterious  change  had 
been  wrought  in  her. 

In  the  past  days  her  soul  had  been  possessed  by  a 
painful  agitation  which  she  did  not  attempt  to  analyze. 
At  moments  the  ingrained  hatred  of  Hugh's  act,  the 
resentment  that  had  been  the  result  of  that  year  of  pain, 
had  risen  to  battle  for  the  inherent  justice  of  things. 
At  such  times  she  was  restless  and  distraite,  sitting 
much  alone,  and  puzzling  David  Stires  by  meaningless 
responses. 

She  could  not  tell  him  that  the  son  whose  name  he 
never  took  upon  his  lips  was  so  near:  that  he  whose 
crime  his  father's  pride  of  name  had  hidden,  through 
all  the  months  since  then,  had  gone  down  with  the  cur 
rent,  shunned  by  honest  folk,  adding  to  his  one  dismal 
act  the  weight  of  persistent  repetition !  She  could  not 
tell  him  this,  even  though  that  son  now  lived  without 

198 


ON    SMOKY   MOUNTAIN 

memory  of  the  evil  he  had  done;  though  he  struggled 
under  a  cloud  of  hatred,  reaching  out  to  clean  deed  and 
high  resolve. 

Now,  however,  all  distrust  and  trepidation  had  van 
ished.  Strangely  and  suddenly  the  complex  warfare  in 
her  mind  had  stilled.  Standing  with  Mrs.  Halloran,  she 
had  listened  to  the  comment  with  shining  eyes.  Not 
that  she  distinguished  any  sudden  and  violent  volte-face 
of  opinion  to  turn  persecution  to  popularity  and  make 
the  reprobate  of  to-day  the  favorite  of  to-morrow.  But 
in  its  very  reserve  she  instinctively  felt  a  new  tension 
of  respect.  Suspicion  and  dislike  aside,  there  was  none 
there  who  would  again  hinder  the  man  who  had  made 
that  race  with  death ! 

For  her  own  part,  she  only  knew  that  she  had  no 
longer  fear  of  soul  or  sense  of  irrevocable  loss,  or  suffer 
ing.  What  were  those  old  Bible  words  about  being  born 
again?  What  was  that  rebirth  but  a  divine  forgetting, 
a  wiping  out,  a  "remembering  no  more  ?"  If  it  was  the 
memory  of  his  shame  that  had  dragged  him  down,  that 
memory  was  gone,  perhaps  for  ever.  The  Hugh  she  now 
loved  was  not  the  Hugh  who  had  sinned ! 

She  sat  by  David  Stires  that  evening  chatting  gaily — 
he  had  been  much  weaker  and  more  nervous  of  late  and 
she  would  not  have  him  told  of  the  runaway — talking 

199 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

of  cheerful  things,  radiating  a  glow  from  her  own  happi 
ness  that  warmed  the  softly-lighted  sick-room.  All  the 
while  her  heart  was  on  the  hillside  where  a  rough  cabin 
held  him  who  embodied  for  her  all  the  mystery  and 
meaning  of  life.  By  a  kind  of  clairvoyance  she  saw 
him  sitting  in  the  snug  firelight,  thinking  perhaps  of 
the  instant  their  eyes  had  met.  She  did  not  guess  that 
for  him  that  moment  had  held  an  added  pang. 

So  the  hours  had  passed,  and  the  sun,  when  it  rose 
next  day,  shone  on  a  freshly  created  world.  The  wind 
no  longer  moaned  for  the  lost  legends  of  the  trees. 
There  was  a  bloom  on  every  flowering  bush,  a  song  in 
the  throat  of  every  bird.  She  was  full  of  new  feelings 
that  yielded  in  their  sway  only  to  new  problems  that 
loomed  on  her  mental  horizon.  As  the  puzzle  of  the 
present  cleared,  the  future  was  become  the  all-dominat 
ing  thing.  She  knew  now  that  she  had  never  hated,  had 
never  really  ceased  to  love.  And  Hugh?  Love  was  not 
a  mere  product  of  times  and  places.  It  was  only  the 
memory  that  was  gone,  his  love  lived  on  underneath. 
Surely  that  was  what  the  violin — what  the  look  on  his 
face  had  said !  When  the  broken  chain  was  welded,  he 
would  know  her!  Would  it  be  chance — some  sudden 
mental  shock — that  would  furnish  the  clue?  She  had 
heard  of  such  things. 

200 


ON   SMOKY   MOUNTAIN 

But  suppose  he  did  not  recover  his  memory.  In  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  he  must  sometime  learn  the  facts 
of  his  past.  Was  it  not  better  to  know  the  very  worst  it 
contained  now,  to  put  all  behind  him,  and  face  a  future 
that  held  no  hidden  menace  ?  She  alone  could  tell  him 
what  had  clouded  his  career — the  thing  whose  sign  and 
symbol  was  the  forged  draft.  She  carried  the  slip  of 
paper  in  the  bosom  of  her  dress,  and  every  day  she  took 
it  out  and  looked  at  it  as  at  some  maleficent  relic.  It 
was  a  token  of  the  old  buried  misery  that,  its  final  pur 
pose  accomplished,  should  be  forgotten  for  ever.  How 
to  convey  the  truth  with  as  little  pain  as  might  be — this 
was  the  problem — and  she  had  found  the  solution.  She 
would  leave  the  draft  secretly  in  the  cabin,  where  he 
must  see  it.  It  bore  his  own  name,  and  the  deadly  word 
David  Stires'  cramped  fist  had  written  across  it,  told  its 
significant  story.  How  it  got  there  Hugh  would  not 
question;  it  would  be  to  him  only  a  detail  of  his  for 
gotten  life  there. 

She  was  glad  when  in  the  late  afternoon  Doctor  Brent 
came  for  his  chat  with  David  Stires,  and  the  latter  sent 
her  out  for  a  walk.  It  was  a  garlanded  day,  a  day  of 
clear  blue  spaces  between  lavender  clouds  lolling  in  the 
sky,  and  over  all  the  late  summer  landscape  a  dull  gold 
wash  of  sun.  There  had  long  ceased  to  be  for  her  any 

201 


SATAN    SANDEKSON 

direction  save  one — down  the  mountain  road  to  where 
a  rambling,  overgrown  path  led  to  the  little  grassy 
plateau  with  its  jutting  rock,  which  was  her  point  of 
observation.  She  did  not  keep  to  the  main  road,  but 
chose  a  short-cut  through  the  thick  underbrush  that 
brought  her  more  quickly  to  the  Knob.  There  she  sat 
down,  and,  parting  the  bushes,  peered  through  them. 

All  was  quiet.  No  wisp  of  smoke  curled  from  the 
cabin  chimney,  no  work  was  forward;  for  Harry  had 
climbed  far  up  the  mountain,  alone  with  his  thoughts. 
It  was  a  favorable  opportunity. 

Jessica  had  the  fateful  draft  in  her  hand  as  she  ran 
quickly  down  the  trail  and  across  the  cleared  space  to 
the  cabin  door.  It  was  wide  open.  Peering  warily  she 
saw  that  both  rooms  were  empty,  and,  with  a  guilty 
last  glance  about  her,  she  entered.  A  smile  curved  her 
lips  as  she  saw  the  plain  neatness  of  the  interior;  the 
scoured  cooking-utensils,  the  coarse  Mackinaw  clothing 
hung  from  wooden  pegs,  the  clean  bacon  suspended  from 
the  rafters.  A  nail  in  the  wall  held  an  old  .violin,  and 
beneath  it  was  a  shelf  of  books. 

To  these,  battered  and  dog-eared  novels  rescued  from 
the  mildewed  litter  of  the  cabin,  Harry  had  turned 
eagerly  in  the  long  evenings  for  lack  of  mental  pabu 
lum.  She  took  one  from  the  meager  row,  and  opened  it 

202 


ON    SMOKY   MOUNTAIN 

curiously.  It  was  David  Copperfield,  and  she  saw  with 
kindling  interest  that  heavy  lines  were  drawn  along  cer 
tain  of  the  pages.  The  words  that  had  been  marked 
revealed  to  the  loving  woman  something  of  his  soul. 

She  looked  about  her.  Where  should  she  put  the 
draft?  He  had  left  a  marker  in  the  book;  he  would 
open  it  again,  no  doubt.  She  laid  the  draft  between 
the  printed  leaves,  beyond  the  marker.  Then,  replacing 
the  volume  on  the  shelf,  she  ran  from  the  door  and 
hastened  back  up  the  steep  trail  to  the  Knob. 

Leaning  back  against  the  warm  rock,  lapped  in  the 
serene  peacefulness  of  the  spot,  Jessica  fell  into  reverie. 
Never  since  her  wedding-day  had  she  said  to  herself 
boldly :  "I  love  him !" — never  till  yesterday.  Now  all 
was  changed.  Her  thought  was  a  tremulous  assurance : 
"I  shall  stay  here  near  him  day  after  day,  watching. 
Some  day  his  memory  will  come  back,  and  then  my  love 
will  comfort  him.  The  town  will  forget  it  has  hated, 
and  will  come  to  honor  him.  Sometime,  seeing  how  he 
is  changed,  his  father  will  forgive  him  and  take  him 
back,  and  we  shall  all  three  go  home  to  the  white  house 
in  the  aspens.  If  not,  then  my  place  will  still  be  with 
Hugh !  Perhaps  we  shall  live  here.  Perhaps  a  cabin  like 
that  will  be  home,  and  I  shall  live  with  him,  and  work 
with  him,  and  care  for  him." 

203 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

Thus  she  dreamed — a  new  day-dream,  unravaged  by 
the  sordid  tests  of  verity. 

So  absorbed  was  she  that  she  did  not  hear  a  step  ap 
proaching  over  the  springy  moss — a  sharply  drawn 
breath,  as  the  intruder  stifled  an  exclamation.  She  had 
drawn  her  handkerchief  across  her  eyes  against  the 
dancing  glimmer  of  sunlight.  Suddenly  it  dropped  to 
her  lap,  and  she  half  turned. 

In  the  instant  of  surprise,  as  Harry's  look  flashed  into 
hers,  a  name  sprang  unbidden  to  her  lips, — a  name  that 
struck  his  strained  face  to  sudden  whiteness,  ringing  in 
his  ears  like  the  note  of  a  sunken  bell.  All  that  was 
clamoring  in  him  for  speech  rushed  into  words. 

"You  call  my  name !"  he  cried.  "You  know  me !  Have 
I  ever  been  'Hugh'  to  you  ?  Is  that  what  your  look  said 
to  me  ?  Is  that  why  your  face  has  haunted  me?  Tell  me, 
I  pray  you !" 

She  had  struggled  to  her  feet,  her  hands  pressed  to 
her  bosom.  The  surprise  had  swung  her  from  her  moor 
ings.  Her  heart  had  been  so  full  in  her  self-commun- 
ings  that  now,  between  the  impulse  toward  revealment 
and  the  warning  of  caution,  she  stood  confused. 

"I  had  never  seen  you  in  the  town  before  that  day," 
she  said.  "I  am  stopping  there" — she  pointed  to  the 
ridge  above,  where  the  roof  of  the  sanatorium  glistened 

204 


ON    SMOKY    MOUNTAIN 

in  the  sunlight.  "I  was  at  the  hotel  by  merest  accident 
when — you  played." 

The  light  died  in  his  eyes.  He  turned  abruptly  and 
stared  across  the  foliaged  space.  There  was  a  moment's 
pause. 

"Forgive  me !"  he  said  at  length,  in  a  voice  curiously 
dull.  "You  must  think  me  a  madman  to  be  talking  to 
you  like  this.  To  be  sure,  every  one  knows  me.  It  is  not 
strange  that  you  should  have  spoken  my  name.  It  was 
a  sudden  impulse  to  which  I  yielded.  I  had  imagined 
...  I  had  dreamed  .  .  .  but  no  matter.  Only,  your 
face — that  white  band  across  your  eyes — your  voice — 
they  came  to  me  like  something  far  away  that  I  have 
known.  I  was  mistaken.  I  was  crazy  to  think  that 
you — " 

He  stopped.  A  wave  of  sympathy  passed  over  Her. 
She  felt  a  mad  wish  to  throw  all  aside,  to  cry  to  him: 
"You  did  know  me !  You  loved  me  once !  I  am  Jessica 
— I  am  your  wife  I"  So  intense  was  her  emotion  that  it 
seemed  to  her  as  if  she  had  spoken  his  name  again 
audibly,  but  her  lips  had  not  moved,  and  the  tap  of  a 
woodpecker  on  a  near-by  trunk  sounded  with  harsh  dis 
tinctness. 

"I  have  wanted  to  speak  to  you,"  she  said,  after  an 
instant  in  which  she  struggled  for  self-control.  "You 

205 


SATAX   SANDERSON 

did  a  brave  thing  yesterday — a  splendid  thing.  It  saved 
me  from  sorrow  all  my  life !" 

He  put  aside  her  thanks  with  a  gesture.  "You  saved 
me  also.  You  found  me  ill  and  suffering  and  your  horse 
carried  me  to  my  cabin." 

"I  want  to  tell  you,"  she  went  on  hastily,  her  fingers 
lacing,  "that  I  do  not  judge  you  as  others  do.  I  know 
about  your  past  life — what  you  have  forgotten.  I  know 
you  have  put  it  all  behind  you." 

His  face  changed  swiftly.  To-day  the  determination 
with  which  he  had  striven  to  put  from  his  mind  the 
problem  of  his  clouded  past  had  broken  down.  In  the 
light  of  the  charge  which  had  been  flung  in  his  teeth 
the  afternoon  before,  his  imagination  had  dwelt  intoler 
ably  on  it.  "Better  to  have  ended  it  all  under  the 
wheels  of  the  freight-engine,"  he  had  told  himself. 
"What  profit  to  have  another  character,  if  the  old  lies 
chuckling  in  the  shadow,  an  old-man-of-the-sea,  a  lurk 
ing  thing,  like  a  personal  devil,  to  pull  me  down !"  In 
these  gloomy  reflections  her  features  had  recurred  with 
a  painful  persistence.  He  had  had  a  bad  half-hour  on 
the  mountain,  and  now,  before  her  look  and  tone,  the 
ever-torturing  query  burst  its  bonds. 

"You  know !"  he  said  hoarsely.  "Yet  you  say  that  ? 
They  stoned  me  in  the  street  the  day  I  came  back,  Yes- 

206 


ON    SMOKY    MOUNTAIN 

terday  they  counted  me  a  thief.  It  is  like  a  hideous 
nightmare  that  I  can't  wake  from.  Who  am  I  ?  Where 
did  I  come  from?  I  dare  not  ask,  for  fear  of  further 
shame  !  Can  you  imagine  what  that  means  ?" 

He  broke  off,  leaning  an  unsteady  hand  against  a 
tree.  "I've  no  excuse  for  this  raving!"  he  said,  in  a 
moment,  his  face  turned  away.  "I  have  seen  you  but 
twice.  I  do  not  even  know  your  name.  I  am  a  man 
snatched  out  of  the  limbo  and  dropped  into  hell,  to 
watch  the  bright  spirits  passing  on  the  other  side  of 
the  gulf!" 

Pain  lay  very  deep  in  the  words,  and  it  pierced  her 
like  a  bodily  pang,  so  close  did  she  seem  to  him  in 
spirit.  She  felt  in  it  unrest,  rebellion,  the  shrinking 
sensibility  that  had  writhed  in  loneliness,  and  the  long 
ing  for  new  foothold  on  the  submerged  causeway  of  life. 

She  came  close  to  him  and  touched  his  arm. 

"I  know  all  that  you  suffer,"  she  said.  "You  are  do 
ing  the  strong  thing,  the  brave  thing !  The  man  in  you 
is  not  astray  now;  it  was  lost,  but  it  has  found  its  way 
back.  When  your  memory  comes,  you  will  see  that  it  is 
fate  that  has  been  leading  you.  There  was  nothing  in 
your  past  that  can  not  be  buried  and  forgotten.  What 
you  have  been  you  will  never  be  again.  I  know  that!  I 
saw  you  fight  Devlin  and  I  know  why  you  did  it.  I 

207 


SATAN 

heard  you  play  the  violin!  Whatever  has  been,  I  have 
faith  in  you  now  !" 

She  spoke  breathlessly,  in  very  abandon,  carried  away 
by  her  feeling.  As  she  spoke  he  had  turned  toward  her, 
his  paleness  flushed,  his  eyes  leaping  up  like  hungry 
fires,  devouring  her  face.  At  the  look  timidity  rushed 
upon  her.  She  stopped  abruptly  and  took  a  startled  step 
from  him. 

He  turned  from  her  instantly,  his  hands  dropped  at 
his  sides.  The  word  that  had  almost  sprung  to  speech 
had  slipped  back  into  the  void. 

"I  thank  you  for  the  charity  you  have  for  me,"  he 
said,  "which  I  in  no  way  deserve.  I  ...  I  shall  al 
ways  remember  it." 

She  hesitated  an  instant,  made  as  if  to  speak.  Then, 
turning,  she  went  quickly  from  him.  At  the  edge  of  the 
bushes  she  stopped  with  a  sudden  impulse.  She  looked 
at  the  handkerchief  she  held  in  her  hand.  Some  tiny 
lettering  was  embroidered  in  its  corner,  the  word  Jes 
sica.  She  looked  back — he  had  not  moved.  Rolling  it 
into  a  ball,  she  threw  it  back,  over  the  bushes,  then  ran 
on  hastily  through  the  trees. 

After  a  time  Harry  turned  slowly,  his  shoulders  lift 
ing  in  a  deep  respiration.  He  drew  his  hand  across  his 
brow  as  though  to  dispel  a  vision.  This  was  the  first 

208 


ON    SMOKY   MOUNTAIN 

time  he  had  hit  upon  the  place.  He  saw  the  flat  ledge, 
with  the  bushes  twisted  before  it  for  a  screen.  She  had 
known  the  place  before,,  then !  The  white  and  filmy 
cambric  caught  his  eye,  lying  at  the  base  of  the  great, 
knob-like  rock.  He  went  to  it,  picked  it  up,  and  looked 
at  it  closely. 

" Jessica  I"  he  whispered.  The  name  clung  about  him ; 
the  very  leaves  repeated  it  in  music.  He  had  a  curious 
sensation  as  if,  while  she  spoke,  that  very  name  had 
half  framed  itself  in  some  curtained  recess  of  his 
thought.  He  pressed  the  handkerchief  to  his  face.  The 
faint  perfume  it  exhaled,  like  the  dust  of  dead  roses, 
gave  him  a  ghostly  impression  of  the  familiar. 

He  thought  of  what  she  had  said ;  she  had  not  known 
him !  And  yet  that  look,  the  strange  dreaming  sense  of 
her  presence,  his  name  on  her  lips  in  the  moment  of 
bewilderment ! 

He  struck  his  forehead  sharply  with  his  open  hand. 

"Fool  r  he  said,  with  a,  bitter  laugh.   "Fool !" 


209 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE   OPEN   WINDOW 

Over  the  sanatorium  on  the  ridge  sleep  had  de 
scended.  On  its  broad  grounds  there  was  no  light  of 
moon  or  stars,  and  its  chamber  windows  were  dark,  save 
where  here  and  there  the  soft  glow  of  a  night-lamp 
sifted  through  a  shutter.  The  evening  had  closed  gloom 
ily,  breeding  storm.  The  air  was  sultry  and  windless, 
and  now  and  then  sheet-lightning  threw  into  blunt  re 
lief  the  dark  bodies  of  the  trees.  Inside  the  building 
all  slumbered,  soundly  or  fitfully  as  health  or  illness 
decreed,  carrying  the  humors  of  the  stirring  day  into 
the  wider  realm  of  sleep. 

Jessica  had  closed  her  eyes,  thinking  of  a  time  when 
secrecy  would  all  be  ended,  disguise  done,  when  she 
would  wear  again  the  ring  she  had  taken  off  in  bitter 
ness,  when  indeed  and  in  name  she  would  be  a  wife 
before  the  world.  She  had  picked  a  great  bowl  of  wild 
star-jasmin  and  set  it  by  her  bedside  and  the  room  was 
sweet  with  the  delicate  scent.  The  odor  carried  her  irre 
sistibly  back  to  the  far-away  mansion  that  had  since 

210 


THE    OPEX   WINDOW 

seemed  a  haunted  dwelling,  to  the  days  of  her  blindness 
and  of  Hugh's  courtship.  Before  she  extinguished  the 
light  she  searched  in  a  drawer  and  found  her  wedding- 
ring — the  one  she  had  worn  for  less  than  an  hour.  It 
was  folded  away  in  a  box  which  she  had  not  opened  since 
the  dreadful  day  when  she  had  broken  in  pieces  her 
model  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  When  she  crept  into  bed,  the 
ring  was  on  her  finger.  She  had  fallen  asleep  with  her 
cheek  resting  on  it. 

She  awoke  with  a  start,  with  a  vague,  inexplicable 
uneasiness,  an  instinct  that  the  night  had  voiced  an  un 
usual  sound.  She  sat  up  in  bed,  staring  into  the  dark 
depths  of  the  room.  Her  instant  thought  had  been  of 
David  Stires,  but  the  tiny  bell  on  the  wall  whose  wire 
led  to  his  bedroom  was  not  vibrating.  She  listened  a 
moment,  but  there  was  only  a  deep  silence. 

Slipping  out  of  bed,  she  crossed  the  room  and  parted 
the  curtain  from  before  the  tall  French  window.  The 
room  was  on  the  ground  floor  and  the  window  gave  di 
rectly  on  the  lawn.  The  wind  seemed  dead,  and  the 
world  outside — the  broad,  cleared  expanse  of  trees  and 
shrubs,  and  the  descending  forest  that  closed  it  round — 
was  wrapped  in  a  dense  blackness.  While  she  gazed  there 
came  a  sudden  yellow  flare  of  lightning  and  far-dis 
tant  mutter  of  thunder  spoke  behind  the  hills. 

211 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

Still  with  the  unreasoning  uneasiness  holding  her, 
she  groped  to  the  door,  drew  the  bolt  and  looked  out 
into  the  wide,  softly  carpeted  hall,  lighted  dimly  by  a 
lamp  set  just  at  the  turn  of  the  staircase.  'All  at  once  a 
shiver  ran  through  her.  There,  a  dozen  steps  away,  the 
light  full  upon  him,  stood,  the  man  who  filled  her 
thoughts. 

He  stood  perfectly  still,  without  movement  or  gesture, 
gazing  at  her.  She  could  see  his  face  distinctly,  sil 
houetted  on  the  pearl-gray  wall.  It  wore  an  expression 
of  strained  concern  and  of  deep  helplessness.  The  in 
stant  agitation  and  surprise  blotted  the  puzzle  of  his 
presence  there.  She  forgot  that  it  was  the  dead  of  night, 
that  she  was  in  her  nightgown.  It  flashed  across  her 
mind  that  some  near  and  desperate  trouble  had  befallen 
him.  All  the  protective  and  maternal  in  her  love  welled 
up.  She  went  quickly  toward  him. 

He  did  not  move  or  stir,  and  then  she  realized  that 
though  his  eyes  seemed  to  look  at  her,  it  was  with  a 
passive  tranced  fixity.  They  saw  nothing.  He  was 
asleep. 

It  was  the  mind  which  was  conscious,  the  action  of  the 
brain  was  at  rest.  The  body,  through  the  operation  of 
some  irreducible  law  of  the  subjective  self,  was  moving 
in  an  automatic  somnambulism.  The  intermittent  rnem- 

212 


THE   OPEN   WINDOW 

ory  that  had  begun  to  emerge  in  sleep,  that  had  given 
him  on  waking  the  eerie  impression  of  a  dual  identity, 
had  led  him,  involuntarily  and  unerringly,  to  her. 

She  halted,  a  deep  compassion  and  a  painful  wonder 
ment  holding  her,  feeling  with  a  thrill  the  power  she 
possessed  over  him.  Then,  like  a  cold  wave,  surged  over 
her  a  numbing  sense  of  his  position.  How  had  he 
entered  ?  Had  he  broken  locks  like  a  burglar  ?  The  sit 
uation  was  anomalous.  What  should  she  do?  Waked 
abruptly,  the  result  might  be  disastrous.  Discovered,  his 
presence  there  when  all  slumbered,  suspected  as  he  had 
been,  would  be  ruinous.  She  must  get  him  away,  out 
of  the  house,  and  quickly. 

A  breath  of  cool  air  swept  past  her,  putting  out  the 
lamp — an  outer  door  was  open.  At  the  same  instant  she 
heard  steps  beyond  the  curve  of  the  hall,  Doctor  Brent's 
voice  peremptory  and  inquiring.  Her  nerves  chilled ;  he 
blocked  the  sole  avenue  of  retreat.  No,  there  was  one 
other,  and  only  one — a  single  way  to  shield  him.  Quiet 
and  resourceful  now,  though  her  cheeks  were  hot,  she 
took  the  hand  of  the  unconscious  man,  drew  him  silent 
and  unresisting  into  the  friendly  shadow  of  her  room, 
closed  the  door  noiselessly  and  bolted  it. 

For  a  moment  she  stood  motionless,  her  heart  beating 
violently.  Had  he  been  seen?  Or  had  the  open  door 

213 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

created  an  alarm  ?  Releasing  his  hand  gently,  she  found 
her  way  softly  to  a  stand,  lighted  a  tiny  night-taper, 
and  threw  a  shawl  about  her.  Through  its  ground-glass 
the  light  cast  a  wan  glimmer  which  showed  the  shadowy 
outlines  of  the  room,  its  white  rumpled  bed,  its  scat 
tered  belongings  eloquent  of  a  woman's  ownership,  and 
the  pallid  countenance  of  the  sleeping  man.  He  had 
stopped  still ;  a  troubled  frown  was  on  his  face,  and  his 
head  was  bent  as  if  listening. 

A  sudden  confusion  tingled  through  her  veins,  a  sense 
of  maidenly  shame  that  she  could  be  there  beside  him 
en  deshabille,  opposing  the  sweet  reminder  of  their  real 
relationship — was  he  not  in  fact  her  husband  ? — that  lay 
ever  beneath  her  thought  to  justify  and  explain.  He 
must  wake  before  he  left  that  room.  What  would  he 
think?  She  flushed  scarlet  in  the  semi-darkness;  she 
could  not  tell  him — that!  Not  there  and  then!  The 
blood  forsook  her  heart  as  footsteps  sounded  outside  the 
door.  They  paused,  passed  on,  returned  and  died  away. 

Suddenly,  in  the  tense  silence  of  the  room,  the  mantel- 
clock  struck  three,  a  deep  chime,  like  the  vibration  of  a 
far-off  church  bell.  The  tone  was  not  loud — indeed  the 
low  roll  of  the  thunder  had  been  well-nigh  as  loud — but 
there  was  in  the  intrusive  metallic  cadence  a  peculiar 
suggestion  to  the  dormant  mind.  As  the  sound  of  the 

214 


THE    OPEN   WINDOW 

church  bell  in  the  town  had  done  so  often,  it  penetrated 
the  crust  of  sleep ;  it  touched  the  inner  ear  of  the  con 
scious  intelligence  that  stirred  so  painfully,  throbbing 
keenly  to  sights  and  sounds  and  odors  that  to  the  wake 
ful  mind  left  only  a  cloudy  impression  eddying  to  some 
unfamiliar  center.  Harry  started,  a  shudder  ran  through 
his  frame,  he  swayed  dizzily,  his  hand  went  to  his  fore 
head. 

In  the  instant  of  shocked  awakening,  Jessica  was  at 
his  side  in  an  agony  of  apprehension,  her  arm  thrown 
about  him,  her  hand  pressed  across  his  lips,  her  own 
lips  at  his  ear  in  an  agonized  warning : 

"Hush,  do  not  speak !  It  is  I,  Jessica.  Make  no  noise." 

She  felt  her  wrist  caught  in  a  grasp  that  made  her 
wince.  His  whole  body  was  trembling  violently.  " Jes 
sica  I"  he  said  in  a  painfully  articulated  whisper.  "You  ? 
Where  am  I  ?" 

"This  is  my  room,"  she  breathed.  "You  have  been 
walking  in  your  sleep.  Make  no  sound.  We  shall  be 
heard." 

A  low  exclamation  broke  from  his  lips.  He  looked 
bewilderedly  about  him,  his  eyes  returning  to  her  face 
with  a  horrified  realization.  "I  ...  came  here  .  .  . 
to  your  room  ?"  The  voice  was  scarcely  audible. 

"It  was  I  who  brought  you  here.  You  were  in  the 
215 


SATAN    SANDEKSON 

hall — you  would  have  been  found.  The  house  is 
roused." 

He  turned  abruptly  to  the  door,  but  she  caught  his 
arm.  "What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  You  will  be  seen !" 

"So  much  the  better ;  it  will  be  at  my  proper  measure 
— as  a  prowler,  a  housebreaker,  a  disturber  of  honest 
sleep !" 

"No,  no !"  she  protested  in  a  panic.  "You  shall  not ; 
I  will  not  have  you  taken  for  what  you  are  not !  I  know 
— but  they  would  not  know !  No  one  must  see  you  leave 
this  room !  Do  you  not  think  of  me  ?" 

He  caught  his  breath  hard.  "Think  of  you  I"  he  re 
peated  huskily.  "Is  there  ever  an  hour  when  I  do  not 
think  of  you?  Is  there  a  day  when  I  would  not  die  to 
serve  you  ?  Yet  in  my  very  sleep — " 

He  paused,  gazing  at  her  where  she  stood  in  the  half- 
light,  a  misty,  uncertain  figure.  She  was  curiously 
happy.  The  delicious  and  pangless  sense  of  guilt,  how 
ever — the  guilt  of  the  hidden,  not  the  blameworthy 
thing — that  was  tingling  through  her  was  for  him  a 
shrinking  and  acute  self-reproach. 

"Here !"  he  said  under  his  breath.  "To  have  brought 
myself  here,  of  all  places,  for  you  of  all  women  to  risk 
yourself  for  me !  I  only  know  that  I  was  wandering  for 
years  and  years  in  a  shadowy  desert,  searching  for  some- 

216 


THE    OPEN   WINDOW 

thing  that  would  not  be  found — and  then,  suddenly  I 
was  here  and  you  were  speaking  to  me !  You  should  have 
left  me  to  be  dragged  away  where  I  could  trouble  no 
one  again." 

She  was  silent.  "Forgive  me/'  he  said,  "if  you  can. 
I — I  can  never  forgive  myself.  How  can  I  best  go  ?" 

For  answer  she  moved  to  the  window,  slender  and 
wraith-like.  He  followed  silently.  A  million  vague  new 
impressions  were  clutching  at  him ;  the  fragrance  in  the 
room  was  like  a  hypnotic  incense  veiling  shadowy  forms. 
Lines  started  from  the  blank : 

And  I  swear,  as  I  thought  of  her  thus,  in  that  hour, 
And  how,  after  all,  old  things  were  best, 

That  I  smelt  the  smell  of  that  jasmin-flower 
Which  she  used  to  wear  in  her  breast! 

As  she  parted  the  curtain,  a  second  of  bright  lightning 
revealed  the  landscape,  the  dark  hedges  and  clustered 
trees.  It  blackened,  and  she  drew  him  back  with  a 
hushed  word,  pointing  where  a  lantern  was  flashing 
through  the  shrubbery. 

"It  is  a  watchman/'  she  said.  "He  will  be  gone  pres- 
ently." 

Looking  at  her,  where  she  stood  in  the  dim  light,  half 
turned  away,  one  hand  against  her  cheek,  there  welled 
through  him  a.  wave  of  that  hopeless  longing  which  her 

217 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

kiss  had  awakened  in  that  epoch  moment  of  the  Rev 
erend  Henry  Sanderson.  The  clinging  white  gown,  with 
the  filmy  lace  at  its  throat,  the  taper's  faint  glow  glim 
mering  to  a  numbus  in  her  loosened  hair,  the  sweet  in 
tangible  suggestions  of  the  room — all  these  called  to  him 
potently,  through  the  lines  that  raced  in  his  brain. 

But  O,  the  smell  of  that  jasmin-flower! 

And  O  that  music!  and  O  the  way 
That  voice  rang  out  from  the  donjon  tower — 

"God  help  me  I"  he  whispered,  the  pent  passion  of  his 
dreams  rushing  to  utterance.  "Why  did  I  ever  see  your 
face?  I  was  reckless  and  careless  then.  I  had  damned 
the  decent  side  of  me  that  now  is  quivering  alive!  I 
have  tried  to  blot  your  face  from  my  memory.  But  it  is 
useless.  I  shall  always  see  it." 

A  rumble  of  nearer  thunder  sounded  and  a  tentative 
dash  of  rain  struck  the  pane.  She  was  shaken  to  her 
depths.  She  stood  in  a  whirlwind  of  emotion.  She 
seemed  to  feel  his  arms  clasping  her,  his  lips  on  hers,  his 
adjuring  words  in  her  ears.  The  odor  of  the  flowers 
wreathed  them  both.  The  beating  of  her  heart  seemed 
to  fill  all  the  silent  room. 

On  the  lawn  just  outside  the  window,  low  voices  were 
heard  through  the  increasing  rain.  They  passed,  and 
after  a  moment  he  softly  unlatched  the  window. 

218 


THE    OPEN   WINDOW" 

"Good-by,"  he  said. 

She  stretched  out  her  hand.  He  touched  it,  then  drew 
the  window  wide.  As  he  stepped  noiselessly  down  on  to 
the  springy  turf,  the  lightning  flashed  again — a  pale- 
green  glow  that  seemed  almost  before  her  face.  She  drew 
back,  and  the  same  instant,  through  the  thunder,  the 
electric  bell  on  the  wall  rang  sharply.  She  threw  on  her 
dressing-gown,  thrust  her  feet  into  slippers,  and  hastened 
from  the  room. 

The  same  flash  that  had  startled  Jessica  lighted 
brightly  the  physician  and  the  watchman,  who  stood  at 
the  corner  of  the  building,  having  finished  their  tour  of 
inspection.  It  was  the  latter  who  had  found  the  open 
door  and  who  had  aroused  the  doctor,  insisting  that  he 
had  seen  a  man  in  the  hall.  The  other  had  pooh-poohed 
this,  but  now  by  the  lightning  both  saw  the  figure 
emerge  from  the  French  window  and  disappear  in  the 
darkness. 

They  ran  back,  the  physician  ahead.  The  window  was 
not  locked,  and  they  stepped  through  it  into  an  empty 
room. 

"To  be  sure  I"  said  the  doctor  disgustedly.  "He  was 
here  all  the  time — heard  us  searching  the  halls,  and 
took  the  first  unlocked  door  he  found.  Miss  Holme,  no 
doubt,  is  sitting  up  with  Mr.  Stires.  Not  a  word  of 

219 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

this,"  he  added  as  they  walked  along  the  hall.  "Unless 
she  misses  something,  there  is  no  need  of  frightening 
her." 

He  barred  the  outer  door  behind  the  watchman  and 
went  on.  As  he  reached  David  Stires'  room,  the  door 
opened  and  Jessica  came  out.  She  spoke  to  him  in  a 
low,  anxious  voice.  "I  was  coming  for  you,"  she  said. 
"I  am  afraid  he  is  not  so  well.  I  can  not  rouse  him. 
Will  you  come  in  and  see  what  you  can  do  ?" 

The  doctor  entered,  and  a  glance  at  his  patient 
alarmed  him.  Until  dawn  he  sat  with  Jessica  watching. 
When  the  early  sunlight  was  flooding  the  room,  however, 
David  Stires  opened  his  eyes  and  looked  upon  her  quite 
naturally. 

"Where  is  Harry  Sanderson?"  he  asked.  "I  thought 
he  was  here." 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  forced  smile.  "You  have 
been  dreaming,"  she  answered. 

He  seemed  to  realize  where  he  was.  "I  suppose  so," 
he  said  with  a  sigh,  "but  it  was  very  real.  I  thought  he 
came  in  and  spoke  your  name." 

She  stroked  his  hand.  "It  was  fancy,  dear."  If  he 
but  knew  who  had  really  been  there  that  night !  If  she 
could  only  tell  him  all  the  happy  truth ! 

He  lay  silent  a  moment.  Then  he  said :  "If  it  could 
220 


THE    OPEN   WINDOW 

only  have  been  Harry  you  married  instead  of  Hugh ! 

For  he  loved  you,  Jessica." 

She  flushed  as  she  said :  "Ah,  that  was  fancy,  too  !" 
It  was  the  first  time  since  the  day  of  her  marriage 

that  he  had  spoken  Hugh's  name. 


221 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

LIKE  A   THIEF   IN  THE   NIGHT 

Dawn  had  come  with  an  unleashed  wind  and  the  crash 
of  thunder.  The  electric  storm,  which  had  muttered  and 
menaced  like  a  Sabbath  of  witches  till  daylight,  had 
broken  at  length  and  turned  the  world  to  a  raving  tur 
moil,  pitilessly  scarring  the  mountain  and  deluging  the 
gulches  with  cloud-burst. 

In  the  cabin  on  the  hillside  Harry  had  watched  the 
rage  of  the  elements  with  a  dull  sense  of  accord;  it 
typified  the  wild  range  of  feeling  in  which  his  soul  had 
been  harried.  Battle  had  been  the  keynote  of  a  series  of 
days  and  doings  of  which  the  tense  awakening  in  Jes 
sica's  chamber,  with  its  supreme  moment  of  passion  and 
longing,  had  been  a  weird  culmination. 

As  he  made  his  way  down  the  mountain  in  the  blank 
and  heavy  dark,  correcting  his  path  by  the  lightning,  he 
had  faced  squarely  the  question  that  in  that  dim  room 
had  become  an  imminent  demand. 

"What  if  I  love  her!  What  right  have  I  to  love  her, 
with  a  wretched  name  like  mine?  She  has  refinement, 


LIKE    A   THIEF   IN   THE    NIGHT 

a  measure  of  wealth,  no  doubt,  and  I  am  poor  as  pov 
erty,  dependent  on  the  day's  grubbing  in  the  ditch  for 
to-morrow's  bacon  and  flour.  Yet  that  would  not  stand 
in  the  way !  I  am  no  venal  rogue,  angling  for  the  loaves 
and  fishes.  Whatever  else  she  cursed  me  with,  Nature 
gave  me  a  brain,  and  culture  and  experience  have  edu 
cated  it.  With  hand  or  brain  I  can  hew  my  own  niche  to 
stand  in !  Must  I  put  away  the  longing  that  drove  me 
to  her  in  sleep,  with  her  dawning  love  that  shielded  me  ? 
And  if,  knowing  all,  she  love  me,  must  the  past,  that  is 
so  unreal  to  me,  block  my  way  to  happiness?  I  am 
putting  it  deep  underground,  and  its  ghost  shall  not 
rise !  Time  passes,  reputations  change.  Mine  will 
change.  And  when  I  have  squared  my  living  here,  the 
world  is  wide.  What  does  it  matter  who  she  is,  if  she 
is  the  one  woman  for  me  ?  What  does  it  matter  what  I 
have  been,  if  I  shall  be  that  no  longer?" 

So  he  had  argued,  but  his  argument  ended  always  with 
the  same  stern  and  unanswerable  conclusion :  "To  drag 
her  down  in  order  to  lift  myself !  Because  she  pities  me 
— pity  is  akin  to  love ! — shall  I  take  advantage  of  her 
interest  and  innocence?  Shall  I  play  upon  divine  com 
passion  and  sinister  propinquity,  like  any  mean  adven 
turer  who  inveigles  a  romantic  girl  into  marrying  a 
rascal  to  reform  him  ?" 

223 


SATAN    SAXDERSOX 

In  the  cabin,  through  the  long  hours  till  the  dawn 
began  to  infiltrate  the  dark  hollows  of  the  wood  he  had 
lain  wide-eyed,  thinking.  When  day  came  he  had  cooked 
his  breakfast  and  thereafter  sat  watching  the  havoc  of 
the  storm  through  the  window.  Hours  passed  thus  be 
fore  the  fury  of  the  wind  had  spent  itself,  and  with  the 
diminution  of  the  rain,  a  crouching  mist  had  crept  over 
the  range  from  the  west,  from  which  Smoky  Mountain 
jutted  like  a  drenched  emerald  island.  At  length  he 
rose,  threw  open  the  door  and  stood  looking  out  upon 
the  wind-whipped  foliage  and  the  drab  desolation  of  the 
fog.  Then  he  threw  on  his  Mackinaw  coat,  picked  up 
his  gold-pan  and  climbed  down  the  slope.  Beneath  all 
other  problems  must  lie  the  sordid  problem  of  his  daily 
food.  He  had  uncovered  a  crevice  in  the  bed-rock  at  the 
end  of  his  trench  the  day  before,  and  now  he  scraped 
a  pailful  of  the  soggy  gravel  it  contained  and  carried  it 
back  to  the  cabin.  A  fresh  onslaught  of  rain  came  just 
then,  and  setting  the  heaped-up  pan  on  the  doorstep, 
he  reentered  the  room. 

With  a  sigh  he  took  off  his  damp  coat  and  threw  a 
log  on  the  fire.  He  abstractedly  watched  it  kindle,  then 
filled  and  lit  his  pipe  and  turned  to  the  book-shelf.  He 
ran  his  hand  absently  along  the  row.  Where  had  been 
that  wide,  dim  expanse  of  library  walls  that  hovered 

224 


LIKE    A   THIEF    IN   THE    NIGHT 

like  a  mirage  beyond  his  visual  sight?  He  chose  a  vol 
ume  he  had  been  reading,  and  turned  the  pages. 

All  at  once  his  hand  clenched.  He  gave  a  choked  cry. 
He  was  staring  at  a  canceled  bank-draft  bearing  his  own 
name — a  draft  across  whose  face  was  written,  in  the 
cramped  hand  resembling  the  signature,  a  word  that 
seemed  etched  in  livid  characters  of  shame — Forgery! 

"Pay  to  Hugh  Stires" — "the  sum  of  five  thousand 
dollars" — he  read  the  phrases  in  a  hoarse,  husky  mono 
tone,  every  vein  beating  fiercely,  his  body  hot  with  the 
heat  of  a  forge.  There  it  was,  a  hideous  chapter  of  it, 
the  damnable  truth  from  which  he  had  shrunk !  "I  may 
be  a  thief !" — he  had  said  that  to  himself  long  ago.  His 
mind  had  revolted  at  the  idea,  yet  the  thought  had 
clung.  It  had  made  him  a  coward.  When  the  allegation 
had  passed  before  the  jeweler's  shop,  it  had  stung  the 
deeper  for  his  dread.  He  had  been  the  beneficiary  of 
that  forgery.  He  alone  could  have  perpetrated  it.  The 
popular  suspicion  was  well  grounded :  he  was  a  common 
criminal ! 

Did  the  town  know?  He  snatched  at  the  draft  and 
read  the  date.  More  than  a  year  ago,  and  it  had  been 
presented  for  payment  in  a  distant  city,  the  city  near 
which  he  had  been  picked  up  beside  the  railroad  track. 
The  forged  name  was  the  same  as  his  own.  Who  was 


SATAN    SANDERSON" 

David  Stires?  His  father?  Had  that  city  been  his 
home  once,  and  that  infamous  act  the  forerunner  of  his 
flight  or  exile  ?  He  looked  at  the  paper  again  with  pain 
ful  intentness.  It  was  canceled — therefore  had  been  paid 
without  question.  Yet  the  man  it  had  robbed  had 
stamped  it  with  that  venomous  hall-mark.  Clearly  the 
law  had  not  stepped  in — for  here  he  was  at  liberty,  own 
ing  his  name.  He  had  been  let  go,  then,  disowned,  to 
carry  his  badge  of  crime  here  into  the  wilderness !  And 
how  had  he  lived  since  then  ?  Harry  shuddered. 

What  now?  It  was  no  longer  a  question  only  of  his 
life  and  repute  here  at  Smoky  Mountain.  The  trail  led 
infinitely  further ;  it  led  to  the  greater  world,  into  which 
he  had  fondly  dreamed  of  going.  The  words  Jessica  had 
spoken  on  the  hillside  sounded  in  his  ears:  "Whatever 
has  been  I  have  faith  in  you  now."  His  face  lightened. 
That  assurance  had  swept  the  past  utterly  aside,  had 
leaned  only  on  the  present.  His  present,  at  least,  was 
clean ! 

He  drew  a  sudden  breath  and  the  color  faded  from  his 
cheek ;  a  baleful  suggestion  had  insinuated  itself  with  a 
harrowing  pain.  Was  it  clean?  He  had  forced  an  en 
trance  in  the  dead  of  night  to  tread  dark  halls  like  a 
thief — and  he  had  laid  that  flattering  unction  to  his 
soul !  Suppose  he  had  not  gone  there  innocent  of  pur- 

226 


LIKE   A   THIEF    IN   THE    NIGHT 

pose  ?  What  if,  not  alone  the  memory,  but  the  lusts  and 
vices  of  the  former  man  were  reasserting  themselves  in 
sleep?  What  if  the  new  Hugh  Stires,  unknown  to  the 
waking  consciousness,  was  carrying  on  the  deeds  of  the 
old?  What  if  the  town  was  right?  What  if  there  was, 
indeed,  good  reason  for  suspecting  him  ? 

He  stumbled  to  a  chair  and  sat  down,  his  frame  rigid. 
He  thought  of  the  robbed  sluice  in  the  gulch  below,  of 
his  own  unhappy  adventure  of  the  night.  How  could  he 
tell  what  he  had  done — what  he  might  do?  Minutes 
went  by  as  he  sat  motionless,  his  mind  catching  strange 
kaleidoscopic  pictures  that  fled  past  him  into  the  void. 
At  length  he  rose  and  went  to  the  window.  Far  down 
the  hillside,  a  faint  line  through  the  mist  spanned  the 
gulch  bottom.  A  groan  burst  from  his  lips: 

"That  is  the  hydraulic  flume,"  he  said  aloud.  "Gold 
has  been  stolen  there  in  the  past,  again  and  again.  Some 
was  stolen  two  nights  ago.  How  do  I  know  but  that  I 
am  the  thief?"  Was  that  what  Prendergast  had  meant 
by  the  "easier  way"  ?  A  shiver  ran  over  him.  "How  do 
I  know !"  he  thought.  "I  can  see  myself — the  evil  side 
of  me — when  the  dark  had  fallen,  waking  and  active 
...  I  see  myself  creeping  down  there,  stealing  from 
shadow  to  shadow,  to  scoop  the  gold  from  the  riffles 
when  the  moon  is  under  a  cloud.  I  see  men  sitting  from 

227 


SATAN   BANDEBSON 

dark  to  daylight,  with  loaded  rifles  across  their  knees, 
watching.  I  see  a  flash  of  fire  ...  I  hear  a  report. 
I  see  myself  there  by  the  sluice-boxes,  dead,  shot  down 
in  the  act  of  a  thief,  making  good  the  name  men  know 
me  by !" 

The  figure  of  Jessica  came  before  him,  standing  in 
her  soft  white  gown,  her  hand  against  her  cheek  and  the 
jasmin  odors  about  her.  The  dream  he  had  dreamed 
could  not  be — never,  never,  never !  All  that  was  left  was 
surrender,  ignominious  flight  to  scenes  barren  of  sug 
gestion. 

To  a  place  where  he  could  work  and  save  and  repay ! 
He  looked  at  the  slip  of  bank-paper  in  his  hand. 

At  that  instant  a  shining  point  caught  his  eye.  It 
came  from  the  pan  of  gravel  on  the  doorstep  on  which 
the  rain  had  been  beating.  He  thrust  the  draft  into  his 
pocket  and  seized  a  double  handful  of  the  gravel.  He 
plunged  it  into  a  pail  of  water  and  held  it  to  the  light. 
It  sparkled  with  coarse,  yellow  flakes  of  gold.  He 
dropped  the  handful  with  a  sharp  exclamation,  threw  on 
his  coat  and  rushed  from  the  cabin. 

All  day,  alone  on  the  fog-soaked  hillside,  Harry  toiled 
in  the  trench  without  food  or  rest. 


228 


CHAPTER   XXVII 

,  INTO   THE  GOLDEN   SUNSET 

It  was  a  fair,  sweet  evening,  and  the  room  where 
Jessica  sat  beside  David  Stires'  bed,  reading  aloud  to 
him,  was  flooded  with  the  failing  sunlight.  The  height 
was  still  in  brightness,  but  the  gulches  below  were  wine- 
red  and  on  their  rims  the  spruces  stood  shadow-straight 
against  the  golden  ivory  of  the  southern  sky.  Since  the 
old  man's  seizure  in  the  night  he  had  been  much  worse 
and  she  had  scarcely  left  his  room.  To-day,  however,  he 
had  sat  propped  by  pillows,  able  to  read  and  chat,  and  the 
deep  personal  anxiety  that  had  numbed  her  had  yielded. 
She  was  reading  now  from  a  life  of  that  poetess  whose 
grave  has  made  a  lonely  Colorado  mountain  a  place  of 
pilgrimage.  She  read  in  a  low  voice,  holding  the  page 
to  the  dimming  light : 

"The  spot  she  chose  was  a  bare  knoll,  facing  out  across 
the  curved  chasm,  the  wide  empty  gulf  on  three  sides,  a  plot 
bounded  by  a  knot  of  noble  trees  that  whispered  softly  to 
gether.  Here  above  the  sky  was  beautifully  blue,  the 
searching  fall  wind  that  numbed  the  fingers  in  the  draw  of 
the  gorge  was  gone,  and  the  warm  sunshine  was  mellow  and 

229 


'SATAN   SANDERSON 

pleasant.  It  was  a  spot  to  dream  in,  leaning  upon  the  great 
facts  of  God  that  He  teaches  best  to  those  who  love  His 
Nature.  A  spot  in  which  to  be  laid  at  last  for  the  long 
sleep,  when  mortal  dreams  are  over  and  work  is  done." 

"That  is  beautiful,"  lie  said.  "I  should  choose  a  spot 
like  that."  He  pointed  down  the  long  slope,  where  a  red 
beam  of  the  sun  touched  the  gray  face  of  the  Knob  and 
turned  it  to  a  spot  of  crimson-lake.  "That  must  be  such 
a  place." 

Her  cheeks  flushed.  She  knew  what  he  was  thinking. 
He  would  not  wish  to  lie  in  the  far-away  cemetery  that 
looked  down  on  the  white  house  in  the  aspens,  the  the 
ater  of  his  son's  downfall !  The  Knob,  she  thought  with 
a  thrill,  overlooked  the  place  of  Hugh's  regeneration. 

A  knock  came  at  the  door.  It  was  a  nurse  with  letters 
for  him  from  the  mail,  and  while  he  opened  them  Jes 
sica  laid  aside  the  book  and  went  slowly  down  the  hall  to 
the  sun-parlor,  where  the  doctor  stood  with  the  group 
gathered  after  the  early  supper,  chatting  of  the  newest 
"strike"  on  the  mountain. 

"We'll  be  famous  if  we  keep  on,"  he  was  saying,  as 
she  looked  out  of  the  wide  windows  across  the  haze 
where  the  sunlight  drifted  down  in  dust  of  gold.  "I've  a 
mind  to  stake  out  a  claim  myself." 

"We  pay  you  better,"  said  one  of  the  occupants 
230 


INTO    THE    GOLDEN    SUNSET 

grimly.  "Anyway,  the  whole  of  Smoky  Mountain  was 
staked  in  the  excitement  a  year  ago.  There's  no  doubt 
about  this  find,  I  suppose  ?" 

"It's  on  exhibition  at  the  bank/'  the  doctor  replied. 
"More  than  five  thousand  dollars,  cached  in  a  crevice  in 
the  glacial  age,  as  neat  as  a  Christmas  stocking !" 

"Wish  it  was  my  stocking,"  grunted  the  other.  "It 
would  help  pay  my  bill  here." 

The  man  of  medicine  laughed  and  nodded  to  Jessica 
where  she  stood,  her  cheeks  reddened  by  the  crimsoning 
light.  She  had  scarcely  listened  to  the  chatter,  or,  if  she 
did,  paid  little  heed.  All  her  thoughts  were  with  the 
man  she  loved.  Watching  the  luminous  purple  shadows 
grow  slowly  over  the  landscape,  she  longed  to  run  down 
to  the  Knob,  to  sit  where  she  had  first  spoken  to  him, 
perhaps  by  very  excess  of  yearning  to  call  him  to  her 
side.  She  had  a  keen  sense  of  the  compunction  he  must 
feel,  and  longed,  as  love  must,  to  reassure  him. 

The  talk  went  on  about  her. 

"Where  is  the  lucky  claim  ?"  some  one  asked. 

"Just  below  this  ridge,"  the  doctor  replied.  "It  is 
called  the  'Little  Paymaster.' " 

The  name  caught  her  ear  now.  The  Little  Paymaster  ? 
That  was  the  name  on  the  tree — on  Hugh's  claim !  At 
that  instant  she  thought  she  heard  David  Stires  calling. 

231 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

She  turned  and  ran  quickly  up  the  long  hall  to  his  open 
door. 

The  sight  of  his  face  at  first  startled  her,  for  it  was 
held  captive  of  emotion;  but  it  was  an  emotion  of  joy, 
not  of  pain.  A  letter  fluttered  in  his  grasp.  He  thrust 
it  into  her  hands. 

"Jessica  I"  he  exclaimed.  "Hugh  has  paid  it !  He  has 
sent  the  five  thousand  dollars,  interest  and  principal,  to 
the  bank,  to  my  account." 

For  a  moment  she  stood  transfixed.  The  talk  she  had 
mechanically  heard  leaped  into  significance,  and  her 
mind  ran  back  to  the  hour  when  she  had  left  the  draft 
at  the  cabin.  She  caught  the  old  man's  hand  and  knelt 
by  his  chair,  laughing  and  crying  at  once. 

"I  knew — oh,  I  knew !"  she  cried,  and  hid  her  face  in 
the  coverlet. 

"It  is  what  I  have  prayed  for,"  he  said,  after  a  mo 
ment,  in  a  shaking  voice.  "I  said  I  hoped  I  would  never 
see  his  face  again,  but  I  was  bitter  then.  He  was  my 
only  son,  after  all,  and  he  is  your  husband.  I  have 
thought  it  all  over  lying  here." 

Jessica  lifted  her  eyes,  shining  with  a  great  thankful 
ness.  During  these  last  few  days  the  impulse  to  tell  all 
that  she  had  concealed  had  been  almost  irresistible ;  now 
the  barrier  had  fallen.  The  secret  she  had  repressed  so 

232 


INTO    THE    GOLDEN    SUNSET 

long  came  forth  in  a  rush  of  sentences  that  left  him 
mute  and  amazed. 

"I  should  have  told  you  before/'  she  ended,  '"but  I 
didn't  know — I  wasn't  sure — "  She  broke  down  for  very 

joy- 
He  looked  at  her  with  eyes  unnaturally  bright.  "Tell 
me  everything,  Jessica !"  he  said.  "Everything  from  the 
beginning !" 

She  drew  the  shade  wider  before  the  open  window, 
where  he  could  look  down  across  the  two  miles  of  dark 
ening  foliage  to  the  far  huddle  of  the  town — a  group  of 
toy  houses  now  hazily  indistinct — and,  seated  beside  him, 
his  hand  in  hers,  poured  out  the  whole.  She  had  never 
framed  it  into  words;  she  had  pondered  each  incident 
severally,  apart,  as  it  were,  from  its  context.  Now,  with 
the  loss  of  memory  and  the  pitiful  struggle  of  recollec 
tion  as  a  background,  the  narrative  painted  itself  in 
vivid  colors  to  whose  pathos  and  meaning  her  every  in 
stinct  was  alive.  Her  first  view  of  Hugh,  the  street  fight 
and  the  revelation  of  the  violin — the  part  she  and  Pren- 
dergast  had  taken — the  rescue  of  the  child — the  leaving 
of  the  draft  in  the  cabin,  and  the  strange  sleep-walking 
that  had  so  nearly  found  a  dubious  ending — she  told  all. 
She  did  not  realize  that  she  was  revealing  the  depths  of 
her  own.  heart  without  reserve.  If  she  omitted  to  tell  of 

233 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

his  evil  reputation  and  the  neighborhood's  hatred,  who 
could  blame?  She  was  a  woman,  and  she  loved  them 
both. 

Dusk  came  before  the  moving  recital  was  finished. 
The  rose  of  sunset  grew  over  the  trellised  west,  faded, 
and  the  gloom  deepened  to  darkness,  pricked  by  stars. 
The  old  man  from  the  first  had  scarcely  spoken.  When 
she  ended  she  could  hardly  see  his  face,  and  waited  anx 
iously  to  hear  what  he  might  say.  Presently  he  broke  the 
silence. 

"He  was  young  and  irresponsible,  Jessica,"  he  said. 
"Money  always  came  so  easily.  He  didn't  realize  what 
he  was  doing  when  he  signed  that  draft.  He  has  learned 
a  lesson  out  in  the  world.  It  won't  hurt  his  career  in  the 
end,  for  no  one  but  you  and  I  and  one  other  knows  it. 
Thank  God !  If  his  memory  comes  back — " 

"Oh,  it  will!"  she  breathed.  "It  must!  That  day  on 
the  Knob  he  only  needed  the  clue !  When  I  tell  him  who 
I  am,  he  will  know  me.  He  will  remember  it  all.  I  am 
sure — sure!  Will  you  let  me  bring  him  to  you?"  she 
added  softly. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  pressing  her  hand,  "to-morrow.  I 
shall  be  stronger  in  the  morning." 

She  rose  and  lighted  the  lamp,  shading  it  from  his 
eyes. 

234: 


INTO    THE    GOLDEN"   SUNSET 

"Do  you  remember  the  will,  Jessica?"  he  asked  her 
presently.  "The  will  I  drew  the  day  he  came  back  ?  You 
never  knew,  but  I  signed  it — the  night  of  your  wedding. 
Harry  Sanderson  was  right,  my  dear,  wasn't  he  ? 

"I  wish  now  I  hadn't  signed  it,  Jessica,"  he  added. 
"I  must  set  it  right — I  must  set  it  right  I"  He  watched 
her  with  a  smile  on  his  face.  "I  will  rest  now,"  he  said, 
and  she  adjusted  the  pillows  and  turned  the  lamp  low. 

Crossing  the  room,  she  stepped  through  the  long  win 
dow  on  to  the  porch,  and  stood  leaning  on  the  railing. 
Prom  the  dark  hedges  where  the  brown  birds  built  came 
a  drowsy  twitter  as  from  a  nest  of  dreams.  A  long  time 
she  stood  there,  a  thousand  thoughts  busy  in  her  brain — 
of  Hugh,  of  the  beckoning  future.  She  thought  of  the 
day  she  had  destroyed  the  model  that  her  fingers  longed 
to  remold,  now  that  the  Prodigal  was  indeed  returned. 
The  words  of  the  biblical  narrative  flashed  through  her 
mind:  And  he  arose  and  came  to  Ms  father.  But  when 
he  was  yet  a  great  way  off,  his  father  saw  him,  and  had 
compassion, and  ran, and  fell  on  his  necTc,and  leased  him. 
So  Hugh's  father  would  meet  him  now!  The  dewed 
odors  of  the  jasmin  brought  the  memory  of  that  stormy 
night  when  he  had  come  to  her  in  his  sleep.  She  imag 
ined  she  heard  again  his  last  word — his  whispered 
"Good-by"  in  the  sound  of  the  rain. 

235 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

She  thought  it  a  memory,  but  the  word  that  flashed 
into  her  mind  was  carried  to  her  from  the  shadow, 
where  a  man  stood  in  the  shrubbery  watching  her  dim 
figure  and  her  face  white  and  beautiful  in  the  light  from 
a  near-by  window,  with  a  passionate  longing  and  re 
bellion. 

Harry  was  seeing  her,  he  told  himself,  for  the  last 
time.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  this  on  that  stormy 
morning  when  he  had  found  the  lucky  crevice.  For  days 
he  had  labored,  spurred  by  a  fierce  haste  to  make  re 
quital.  Till  the  last  ounce  of  the  rich  "pocket"  had  been 
washed,  and  the  whole  taken  to  the  bank  in  the  town, 
no  one  had  known  of  the  find.  It  had  repaid  the  forgery 
and  left  him  a  handful  of  dollars  over — enough  to  take 
him  far  away  from  the  only  thing  that  made  life  worth 
the  effort.  He  had  climbed  to  the  ridge  on  the  bare 
chance  of  seeing  Jessica — not  of  speaking  to  her.  Watch 
ing  her,  it  required  all  his  repression  not  to  yield  to  the 
reckless  desire  that  prompted  him  to  go  to  her,  look  into 
her  eyes,  and  tell  her  he  loved  her.  He  made  a  step  for 
ward,  but  stopped  short,  as  she  turned  and  vanished 
through  the  window. 

Standing  on  the  porch,  a  gradual  feeling  of  appre 
hension  had  come  to  Jessica — an  impression  of  blank- 
ness  and  chill  that  affected  her  strangely.  Inside  the 

236 


INTO    THE    GOLDEN    SUNSET 

room  she  stood  still,  frightened  at  the  sudden  sense  of 
utter  soundlessness. 

She  caught  up  the  lamp,  and,  turning  the  wick,  ap 
proached  the  bed.  She  put  out  her  hand  and  touched 
the  wasted  one  on  the  coverlet.  Then  a  sobbing  cry  came 
from  her  lips. 

David  Stires  was  gone.  A"  crowning  joy  had  goldened 
his  bitterness  at  the  last  moment,  and  he  had  gone  away 
with  his  son's  face  in  his  heart  and  the  smile  of  wel 
come  on  his  lips. 


237 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 

THE  TENANTLESS   HOUSE 

Dark  was  falling  keen  and  cool,  for  frost  was  in  the 
air,  touching  the  fall  foliage  on  the  hills  to  crimson  and 
amber,  silvering  the  long  curving  road  that  skirted  the 
river  bluff,  and  etching  delicate  hoar  tracery  on  the 
spidery  framework  of  the  long  black  railroad  bridge  that 
hung  above  "the  hole."  The  warning  light  from  a  sig 
nal-post  threw  a  crimson  splash  on  the  ground.  Its 
green  pane  cast  a  pallor  on  a  bearded  face  turned  out 
over  the  gloomy  water. 

The  man  who  had  paused  there  had  come  from  far, 
and  his  posture  betokened  weariness,  but  his  features 
were  sharp  and  eager.  He  turned  and  paced  back  along 
the  track  to  the  signal-post. 

"It  was  here,"  he  said  aloud.  He  stood  a  moment,  his 
hands  clenched.  "The  new  life  began  here.  Here,  then, 
is"  where  the  old  life  ended."  From  where  he  stood  he 
could  see  blossoming  the  yellow  lights  of  the  little  city, 
five  miles  away.  He  set  his  shoulders,  whistled  to  the 
small  dog  that  nosed  near-by,  and  set  off  at  a  quick  pace 
down  the  road. 

238 


THE    TENANTLESS    HOUSE 

What  had  brought  him  there  ?  He  scarcely  could  have 
told.  Partty,  perhaps,  a  painful  curiosity,,  a  flagellant 
longing  to  press  the  iron  that  had  seared  him  to  his  soul. 
So,  after  a  fortnight  of  drifting,  the  dark  maelstrom  of 
his  thoughts  had  swept  him  to  its  dead  center.  This  was 
the  spot  that  held  the  key  to  the  secret  whose  shame  had 
sent  him  hither  by  night,  like  a  jailbird  revisiting  the 
haunts  that  can  know  him  no  more.  He  came  at  length 
to  a  fork  in  the  road;  he  mechanically  took  the  right, 
and  it  led  him  soon  to  a  paved  road  and  to  more  cheerful 
thoroughfares. 

Once  in  the  streets,  a  bar  to  curious  glances,  he 
turned  up  his  coat  collar  and  settled  the  brim  of  his  felt 
hat  more  closely  over  his  eyes.  He  halted  once  before  a 
shadowed  door  with  a  barred  window  set  in  its  upper 
panel — the  badge  of  a  gambling-house.  As  he  had 
walked,  baffling  hints  of  pictures,  unfilled  outlines  like 
a  painter's  studies  had  been  flitting  before  him,  as  faces 
flit  noiselessly  across  the  opaque  ground  of  a  camera- 
obscura.  Now,  down  the  steps  from  that  barred  door,  a 
filmy,  faded,  Chesterfieldian  figure  seemed  to  be  coming 
toward  him  with  outstretched  hand — one  of  the  ghosts 
of  his  world  of  shadows. 

He  walked  on.  He  crossed  an  open  square  and  pres 
ently  came  to  the  gate  of  a  Gothic  chapel,  set  well  back 

239 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

from  the  street.  Its  great  rose-window  was  alight,  for 
on  this  evening  was  to  be  held  a  memorial  service  for 
the  old  man  whose  money  had  built  the  pile,  who  had 
died  a  fortnight  before  in  a  distant  sanatorium.  A  bur 
nished  brass  plate  was  set  beside  the  gate,  bearing  the 
legend:  "St.  James  Chapel.  Reverend  Henry  Sander 
son,  Rector."  The  gaze  with  which  the  man's  eye  traced 
the  words  was  as  mechanical  as  the  movement  with 
which  his  hand,  in  his  pocket,  closed  on  the  little  gold 
cross;  for  organ  practice  was  beginning,  and  the  air, 
throbbing  to  it,  was  peopled  with  confused  images — but 
no  realization  of  the  past  emerged. 

He  turned  at  the  sound  of  wheels,  and  the  blur 
shocked  itself  apart  to  reveal  a  kindly  face  that  looked 
at  him  for  an  instant  framed  in  the  window  of  a  passing 
carriage.  With  the  look  a  specter  plucked  at  the  flesh  of 
the  wayfarer  with  intangible  fingers.  He  shrank  closer 
against  the  palings. 

Inside  the  carriage  Bishop  Ludlow  settled  back  with 
a  sigh.  "Only  a  face  on  the  pavement,"  he  said  to  his 
wife,  "but  it  reminded  me  somehow  of  Harry  Sander 
son." 

"How  strange  it  is!"  she  said — the  bishop  had  no 
secrets  from  his  wife — "never  a  word  or  a  sign,  and 
everything  in  his  study  just  as  he  left  it.  What  can  you 

240 


THE   TENANTLESS    HOUSE 

do,  John?  It  is  four  months  ago  now,  and  the  parish 
needs  a  rector." 

He  did  not  reply  for  a  moment.  The  question  touched 
the  trouble  that  was  ever  present  in  his  mind.  The 
whereabouts  of  Harry  Sanderson  had  caused  him  many 
sleepless  hours,  and  the  look  of  frozen  realization  which 
had  met  his  stern  and  horrified  gaze  that  unforgetable 
night — a  look  like  that  of  a  tranced  occultist  waked  in 
the  demon-constrained  commission  of  some  rueful  im 
piety — had  haunted  the  good  man's  vigils.  He  had 
knowledge  of  the  by-paths  of  the  human  soul,  and  the 
more  he  reflected  the  less  the  fact  had  fitted.  The  wild 
laugh  of  Hugh's,  as  he  had  vanished  into  the  darkness, 
had  come  to  seem  the  derisive  glee  of  the  tempter  re 
joicing  in  his  handiwork.  Kecollection  of  Harry's  de 
pression  and  the  insomnia  of  which  he  had  complained 
had  deepened  his  conviction  that  some  phase  of  mental 
illness  had  been  responsible.  In  the  end  he  had  revolted 
against  his  first  crass  conclusion.  When  the  announced 
vacation  had  lengthened  into  months,  he  had  been  still 
more  deeply  perplexed,  for  the  welfare  of  the  parish 
must  be  considered. 

"I  know,"  he  said  at  length.  "I  may  have  failed  in 
my  whole  duty,  but  I  haven't  known  how  to  tell  David 
S'tires,  especially  since  we  heard  of  his  illness.  I  had 

241 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

written  to  him — the  whole  story ;  the  ink  was  not  dry  on 
the  paper  when  the  letter  came  from  Jessica  telling  us 
of  his  death." 

Behind  them,  as  they  talked,  the  man  on  the  pave 
ment  was  walking  on  feverishly,  the  organ  music  pur 
suing  him,  the  dog  following  with  a  reluctant  whine. 

At  last  he  came  to  a  wide,  dark  lawn  set  thick  with 
aspens  clustering  about  a  white  house  that  loomed 
grayly  in  the  farther  shadow.  He  hesitated  a  moment, 
then  walked  slowly  up  the  broad,  weed-grown  garden 
path  toward  its  porch.  In  tlje  half  light  the  massive 
silver  door-plate  stood  out  clearly.  He  had  known  in 
stinctively  that  that  house  had  been  a  part  of  his  life, 
and  yet  a  tremor  caught  him  as  he  read  the  name — 
STIRES.  The  intuition  that  had  bent  his  steps  from 
the  street,  the  old  stirring  of  dead  memory,  had  brought 
him  to  his  past  at  last.  This  house  had  been  his  home ! 

He  stood  looking  at  it  with  trouble  in  his  face.  He 
seemed  now  to  remember  the  wide  colonnaded  porch, 
the  tall  fluted  columns,  the  green  blinds.  Clearly  it  was 
unoccupied.  He  remembered  the  scent  of  jasmin  flow 
ers  !  He  remembered — 

He  started.  A  man  in  his  shirt-sleeves  was  standing 
by  a  half-open  side  door,  regarding  him  narrowly. 

"Thinking  of  buying?"  The  query  was  good-humor- 
243 


THE    TENANTLESS    HOUSE 

edly  satiric.   "Or  maybe  just  looking  the  old  ranch,  over 
with  a  view  to  a  shake-down  I" 

The  trespasser  smiled  grimly.  It  was  not  the  first 
time  he  had  seen  that  weather-beaten  face.  "You  have 
given  up  surgery  as  a  profession,  I  see/'  he  said. 

The  other  came  nearer,  looked  at  him  in  a  puzzled 
way,  then  laughed. 

"If  it  isn't  the  card-sharp  we  picked  up  on  the  rail 
road  track  I'9  he  said,  "dog  and  .all !  I  thought  you  were 
far  down  the  coast,  where  it's  warmer.  Nothing  much 
doing  with  you,  eh  ?" 

"Nothing  much,"  answered  the  man  he  addressed. 
Others  might  recognize  him  as  the  black  sheep,  but  this 
nondescript  watchman  whom  chance  had  set  here  could 
not.  He  knew  him  only  as  the  dingy  vagabond  whose 
broken  head  he  had  bandaged  in  the  box-car ! 

"I'm  in  better  luck,"  went  on  the  man  in  shirt-sleeves. 
"I  struck  this  about  two  months  ago,  as  gardener  first, 
and  now  I'm  a  kind  of  a  sort  of  a  watchman.  They  gave 
me  a  bunk  in  the  summer-house  there" — he  jerked  his 
thumb  backward  over  his  shoulder — "but  I  know  a  game 
worth  two  of  that  for  these  cold  nights.  I'll  show  you. 
I  can  put  you  up  for  the  night,"  he  added,  "if  you  like." 

The  wayfarer  shook  his  head.  "I  must  get  away  to 
night,  but  I'm  much  obliged." 

243 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"Haven't  done  anything,  have  you?"  asked  his  one 
time  companion  curiously.  "You  didn't  seem  that  sort." 

The  bearded  face  turned  away.  "I'm  not  'wanted'  by 
the  police,  no.  But  I'm  on  the  move,  and  the  sooner  I 
take  the  trail  the  better.  I  don't  mind  night  travel." 

"You'd  be  better  for  a  rest,"  said  the  watchman,  "but 
you're  the  doctor.  Come  in  and  we'll  have  a  nip  of  some 
thing  warm,  anyhow." 

He  led  the  way  to  the  open  door  and  beckoned  the 
other  inside,  closing  it  carefully  to.  "It's  a  bully  old 
hole,"  he  observed,,  as  he  lit  a  brace  of  candles.  "It 
wasn't  any  trick  to  file  a  key,  and  I  sleep  in  the  library 
now  as  snug  as  a  bug  in  a  rug."  He  held  the  light 
higher.  "You  look  a  sight  better,"  he  said.  "More  flesh 
on  your  bones,  and  the  beard  changes  you  some,  too. 
That  scar  healed  up  fine  on  your  forehead — it's  nothing 
but  a  red  line  now." 

His  guest  followed  him  into  a  spacious  hall,  scarce 
conscious  of  what  he  did.  A  double  door  to  the  left  was 
shut,  but  he  nevertheless  knew  perfectly  that  the  room 
it  hid  had  a  tall  French  window,  letting  on  to  a  garden 
where  camelias  had  once  dropped  like  blood.  The  open 
door  to  the  right  led  to  the  library. 

There  the  yellow  light  touched  the  dark  wainscoting, 
the  marble  mantelpiece,  dim  paintings  on  the  wall,  and 

244 


THE    TENANTLESS   HOUSE 

a  great  brass-bound  Korean  desk  in  a  corner.  What 
black  thing  had  once  happened  in  that  room  ?  What  face 
had  once  looked  at  him  from  that  wheel-chair?  It  was 
an  old  face,  gray  and  lined  and  passionate — his  father, 
doubtless.  He  told  himself  this  calmly,  with  an  odd 
sense  of  apartness. 

The  other's  glance  followed  his  pridefully.  "It's  a 
fine  property/'  he  said.  "The  owner's  an  invalid,  I  hear, 
with  one  leg  in  the  grave.  He's  in  some  sanatorium  and 
can't  get  much  good  of  it.  Nice  pictures,  them,"  he 
added,  sweeping  a  candle  round.  "That's  a  good-looker 
over  there — must  be  the  old  man's  daughter,  I  reckon. 
Well,  I'll  go  and  get  you  a  finger  or  two  to  keep  the 
frost  out  of  your  lungs.  It'll  be  cold  as  Billy-be-dam 
to-night.  Make  yourself  at  home."  The  door  closed  be 
hind  him. 

.The  man  he  left  was  trembling  violently.  He  had 
scarcely  repressed  a  cry.  The  portrait  that  hung  above 
the  mantelpiece  was  Jessica's,  in  a  house-dress  of  soft 
Romney-blue  and  a  single  white  rose  caught  in  her  hair. 
"The  old  man's  daughter!" — the  words  seemed  to  echo 
and  reecho  about  the  walls,  voicing  a  new  agony  without 
a  name.  Then  Jessica  was  his  sister ! 

The  owner  of  the  house,  his  father,  an  invalid  in  a 
sanatorium  ?  It  was  a  sanatorium  on  the  ridge  of  Smoky 

24-5 


SATAN   SANDEBSON 

Mountain  where  she  had  stayed,  into  which  he  had 
broken  that  stormy  night!  Had  his  father  been  there 
then,  yearning  in  pain  and  illness  over  that  evil  career 
of  his  in  the  town  beneath  ?  Was  relationship  the  secret 
of  Jessica's  interest,  her  magnanimity,  that  he  had 
dreamed  was  something  more?  A  dizzy  sickness  fell 
upon  him,  and  he  clenched  his  hands  till  the  nails  struck 
purple  crescents  into  the  palms. 

As  he  stared  dry-eyed  at  the  picture  in  the  candle 
light,  the  misery  slowly  passed.  He  must  ~know.  Who 
she  was,  what  she  was  to  him,  he  must  learn  beyond  per- 
adventure.  He  cast  a  swift  glance  around  him;  orderly 
rows  of  books  stared  from  the  shelves,  the  mahogany 
table  held  only  a  pile  of  old  magazines.  He  strode  to  the 
desk,  drew  down  its  lid  and  tried  the  drawers.  They 
opened  readily  and  he  rapidly  turned  over  their  litter  of 
papers,  written  in  the  same  crabbed  hand  that  had 
etched  the  one  damning  word  on  the  draft  he  had  found 
in  the  cabin  on  Smoky  Mountain. 

This  antique  desk,  with  its  crude  symbols  and  quaint 
brass-work,  a  gift  to  him  once  upon  a  time  from  Harry 
Sanderson,  had  been  David  Stires'  carry-all ;  he  had  been 
spending  a  last  half -hour  in  sorting  its  contents  when 
the  bank-messenger,  on  that  fateful  day,  had  brought 
him  the  slip  of  paper  that  had  told  his  son's  disgrace. 

246 


THE    TENANTLESS    HOUSE 

Most  of  the  papers  the  searcher  saw  at  a  glance  were  of 
no  import,  and  they  gave  him  no  clue  to  what  he  sought. 
Then,  mysteriously  guided  by  the  subtle  memory  that 
seemed  of  late  to  haunt  him,  though  he  was  but  half 
conscious  of  its  guidance,  his  nervous  fingers  suddenly 
found  and  pressed  a  spring — a  panel  fell  down,  and  he 
drew  out  a  folded  parchment. 

Another  instant  and  he  was  bending  over  it  with  the 
candle,  his  fingers  tracing  familiar  legal  phrases  of  a 
will  laid  there  long  ago.  He  read  with  the  blood  shrink 
ing  from  his  heart : 

To  my  son  Hugh,  in  return  for  the  care  and  sorrow 
he  lias  caused  me  all  the  days  of  his  life,  for  his  dissolute 
career  and  his  graceless  desertion,  I  do  give  and  be 
queath  the  sum  of  one  thousand  dollars  and  the  memory 
of  his  misspent  youth.  The  residue  of  my  estate,,  real 
and  personal,  I  do  give  and  bequeath  to  my  ward,  Jessica 
Holme—" 

The  blood  swept  back  to  his  heart  in  a  flood.  Ward, 
not  daughter!  He  could  still  keep  the  one  sweet  thing 
left  him.  His  love  was  justified.  Tears  sprang  to  his 
eyes,  and  he  laid  the  parchment  back  and  closed  the 
desk.  He  hastily  brushed  the  drops  away,  as  the  rough 
figure  of  the  watchman  entered  and  set  down  two  glasses 
and  a  bottle  with  a  flourish. 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"There  you  are;  that'll  be  worth  five  miles  ix>  you!" 
He  poured  noisily.  "Here's  how !"  he  said. 

His  guest  drank,  set  down  the  glass  and  held  out  his 
hand.  "Good  luck,"  he  said.  "You've  got  a  good,  warm 
berth  here;  maybe  I  shall  find  one,  too,  one  of  these 
days." 

The  dog  thrust  a  cold  muzzle  into  his  hand  as  he 
walked  down  the  gravel  path  slowly,  feeling  the  glow  of 
the  liquor  gratefully,  with  the  grudging  release  it 
brought  from  mental  tension.  He  had  not  consciously 
asked  himself  whither  now.  In  some  subconscious  corner 
of  his  brain  this  had  been  asked  and  answered.  He  was 
going  to  his  father.  Not  to  seek  to  change  the  stern  de 
cree;  not  to  annul  those  bitter  phrases:  his  dissolute 
career — the  memory  of  his  misspent  youth!  Only  to  ask 
his  forgiveness  and  to  make  what  reparation  was  pos 
sible,  then  to  go  out  once  more  to  the  world  to  fight  out 
his  battle.  His  way  was  clear  before  him  now.  Fate  had 
guided  him,  strangely  and  certainly,  to  knowledge.  He 
was  thankful  for  that.  He  had  come  a  silent  shadow; 
like  a  shadow  he  would  go. 

He  retraced  his  steps,  and  again  stood  on  the  square 
near  where  the  rose-window  of  the  Gothic  chapel  cast  a 
tinted  luster  on  the  clustering  shrubbery.  The  audience- 
room  was  full  now,  a  string  of  carriages  waited  at  the 

248 


THE    TENANTLESS    HOUSE 

curb,  and  as  he  stood  on  the  opposite  pavement  the 
treble  of  the  choir  rose  full  and  clear : 

"Lead,  kindly  Light,  amid  th'  encircling  gloom, 

Lead  Thou  me  on; 
The  night  is  dark,  and  I  am  far  from  home, 

Lead  Thou  me  on! 

Keep  Thou  my  feet!    I  do  not  care  to  see 
The  distant  scene;  one  step  enough  for  me." 

He  drew  his  hat-brim  over  his  eyes,  and  mingled  with 
the  hurrying  street. 


249 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

THE   CALL   OF  LOVE 

The  bell  was  tapping  in  the  steeple  of  the  little  Cath 
olic  church  on  the  edge  of  the  town,  and  the  mellow  tone 
came  clearly  up  the  slope  of  the  mountain  where  once 
more  the  one-time  partner  of  Prendergast  stood  on  the 
threshold  of  the  lonely  cabin,  sentinel  over  the  mounds 
of  yellow  gravel  that  marked  his  toil. 

The  returned  wanderer  had  met  with  a  distinct  sur 
prise  in  the  town.  As  he  passed  through  the  streets 
more  than  one  had  nodded,  or  had  spoken  his  name,  and 
the  recognition  had  sent  a  glow  to  his  cheek  and  a  light 
ness  to  his  step. 

Since  the  daring  feat  in  the  automobile,  the  tone  of 
the  gossip  had  changed.  His  name  was  no  longer  con 
nected  with  the  sluice  robberies.  The  lucky  find,  too, 
constituted  a  material  boom  for  Smoky  Mountain  and 
bettered  the  stock  in  its  hydraulic  enterprises,  and  this 
had  been  written  on  the  credit  side  of  the  ledger.  Opin 
ion,  so  all-powerful  in  a  new  community,  had  altered. 
Devlin  had  abruptly  ordered  from  his  place  one  who  had 

250 


THE    CALL   OF   LOVE 

done  no  more  than  to  repeat  his  own  earlier  gibes,  and 
even  Michael  Halloran,  the  proprietor  of  the  Mountain 
Valley  House,  had  given  countenance  to  the  more  char 
itable  view  championed  by  Tom  Felder.  All  this  he  who 
had  been  the  outcast  could  not  guess,  but  he  felt  the 
change  with  satisfaction. 

As  he  gazed  up  the  slope,  all  gloriously  afire  with  the 
marvellous  frost-hues  of  the  autumn — dahlia  crimsons, 
daffodil  golds  and  maple  tints  like  the  flames  of  long- 
sought  desires — toward  the  glass  roof  that  sparkled  on 
the  ridge  above,  one  comfort  warmed  his  breast.  If  it 
had  been  the  subtle  stirring  of  blood  kinship,  the  blind 
instinct  of  love,  that  had  drawn  him  to  that  nocturnal 
house-breaking,  not  the  lawless  appetence  of  the  natural 
criminal !  Whether  his  father  was  indeed  there  he  must 
discover. 

Till  the  sun  was  low  he  sat  in  the  cabin  thinking.  At 
length  he  called  the  dog  and  fastened  it  in  its  accus 
tomed  place,  .and  began  slowly  to  climb  the  steep  ascent. 
When  he  came  to  a  certain  vine-grown  trail  that  met  the 
main  path,  he  turned  aside.  Here  lay  the  spot  where  he 
had  first  spoken  with  her,  face  to  face.  Here  she  had 
told  him  there  was  nothing  in  his  past  which  could  not 
be  buried  and  forgotten ! 

As  he  parted  the  bushes  and  stepped  into  the  narrow 
251 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

space  beside  the  jutting  ledge,  he  stopped  short  with  an 
exclamation.  The  place  was  no  longer  a  tangle  of  vines. 
A  grave  had  been  lately  made  there,  and  behind  it,  f resh- 
.chiseled  in  the  rock,  was  a  statue:  a  figure  seated,  chin 
on  hand,  as  if  regarding  the  near-by  mound.  As  in  a 
dream  he  realized  that  its  features  were  his  own.  Awe 
struck,  the  living  man  drew  near. 

It  was  Jessica's  conception  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  as 
she  had  modelled  it  in  Aniston  in  her  blindness,  after 
Hugh's  early  return  to  the  house  in  the  aspens.  That 
David  Stires  should  have  pointed  out  the  distant  Knob 
as  a  spot  in  which  he  would  choose  to  be  buried  had  had 
a  peculiar  significance  to  her,  and  the  wish  had  been 
observed.  Her  sorrow  for  his  death  had  been  deepened 
by  the  thought  that  the  end  had  come  too  suddenly  for 
David  Stires  to  have  reinstated  his  son.  This  sorrow  had 
possessed  one  comfort — that  he  had  known  at  the  last 
and  had  forgiven  Hugh.  Of  this  she  could  assure  him 
when  he  returned,  for  she  could  not  really  believe — so 
deep  is  the  heart  of  a  woman — that  he  would  not  return. 
In  the  days  of  vigil  she  had  found  relief  in  the  rough, 
hard  work  of  the  mallet.  None  had  intruded  in  that 
out-of-the-way  spot,  save  that  one  day  Mrs.  Halloran, 
led  by  curiosity  to  see  the  grave  of  the  rich  man  whose 
whim  it  had  been  to  be  buried  on  the  mountain  side, 

253 


THE   CALL   OF   LOVE 

had  found  her  at  her  work,  and  her  Jessica  had  pledged 
to  silence.  She  was  no  fool,  was  Mrs.  Halloran,  and  to 
learn  the  name  of  the  dead  man  was  to  put  two  and  two 
together.  The  guess  the  good  woman  evolved  undershot 
the  mark,  but  it  was  more  than  sufficient  to  summon  all 
the  romance  that  lurked  beneath  that  prosaic  exterior; 
nevertheless  she  shut  her  lips  against  temptation,  and  all 
her  motherly  heart  overflowed  to  the  girl  who  worked 
each  day  at  that  self-appointed  task.  Only  the  afternoon 
before  Jessica  had  finished  carving  the  words  on  the 
base  of  the  statue  on  which  the  look  of  the  startled  man 
was  now  resting :  I  will  arise  and  go  unto  my  father. 

The  gazer  turned  from  the  words,  with  quick  ques 
tion,  to  the  mound.  He  came  close,  and  in  the  fading 
light  looked  at  the  name  on  the  low  headstone.  So  he 
had  come  too  late ! 

And  the  son  said  unto  him,  Father,  I  have  sinned 
against  heaven  and  in  thy  sight,  and  am  no  more  worthy 
to  be  called  thy  son.  Though  for  him  there  could  have 
been  no  robe  or  ring,  or  fatted  calf  or  merriment,  yet  he 
had  longed  for  the  dearer  boon  of  confession  and  under 
standing.  If  he  could  only  have  learned  the  truth 
earlier!  If  he  might  only  put  back  the  hands  of  the 
clock! 

Hours  went  by.  The  shadows  dreamed  themselves 
253 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

away  and  dark  fell,  cloudless  and  starry.  The  half-moon 
brightened  upon  him  sitting  moveless  beside  the  stone 
figure.  At  length  he  rose  to  his  feet,  his  limbs  cramped 
and  stiffened,  and  made  his  way  back  to  the  lonely  cabin 
on  the  hillside. 

There  he  found  fuel,  kindled  a  blaze  in  the  fireplace 
and  cooked  his  frugal  supper.  The  shock  of  surprise 
past,  he  realized  his  sorrow  as  a  thing  subjective  and 
cerebral.  The  dead  man  had  been  his  father ;  so  he  told 
himself,  but  with  an  emotion  curiously  destitute  of 
primitive  feeling.  The  very  relationship  was  a  portion 
of  that  past  that  he  could  never  grasp ;  all  that  was  of 
the  present  was  Jessica ! 

He  thought  of  the  losing  battle  he  had  fought  there 
once  before,  when  tempest  shrieked  without — the  battle 
which  had  ended  in  debacle  and  defeat.  He  thought  of 
the  will  he  had  seen,  now  sealed  with  the  Great  Seal  of 
Death.  He  was  the  shorn  beggar,  she  the  beneficiary. 
What  duty  she  had  owed  his  father  was  ended  now. 
Desolate  she  might  be — in  need  of  a  hand  to  guide  and 
guard — but  she  was  beyond  the  reach  of  penury.  This 
gave  him  a  sense  of  satisfaction.  Was  she  there  on  the 
mountain  at  that  moment  ?  There  came  upon  him  again 
the  passionate  longing  that  had  held  him  in  that  misty 
sanatorium  room  when  the  odor  of  the  jasmin  had 

254 


THE    CALL   OF   LOVE 

wreathed  them  both — when  she  had  protected  and  saved 
him! 

At  last  he  took  Old  Despair's  battered  violin  from  the 
wall,  and,  seating  himself  in  the  open  doorway,  looking 
across  the  mysterious  purple  of  the  gulches  to  the  sky 
line  sown  with  pale  stars,  drew  the  bow  softly  across  the 
strings.  In  the  long-past  days,  when  he  had  been  the 
Eeverend  Henry  Sanderson,  in  the  darker  moods  of  his 
study,  he  had  been  used  to  seek  the  relief  to  which  he 
now  turned.  Never  but  once  since  then  had  he  played 
with  utter  oblivion  of  self.  Now  his  struggle  and  long 
ing  crept  into  the  music.  The  ghosts  that  haunted  him 
clustered  together  in  the  obscurity  of  the  night,  and 
stood  between  his  opening  future  and  her. 

Through  manifold  variations  the  music  wandered,  till 
at  length  there  came  from  the  hollowed  wood  an  air  that 
was  an  unconscious  echo  of  a  forgotten  wedding-day- — 
"0  perfect  love,  all  human  thought  transcending." 
After  the  fitful  medley  that  had  spoken,  the  placid 
cadence  fell  with  a  searching  pathos  that  throbbed  pain 
fully  on  the  empty  silence  of  the  mountain. 

Empty  indeed  he  thought  it.  But  the  light  breeze  that 
shook  the  pine-needles  had  borne  the  sound  far  to  an  ear 
that  had  grown  tense  with  listening — to  one  on  the  ridge 
above  to  whom  it  had  sounded  the  supreme  call  of  youth 

255 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

and  life.  He  did  not  feel  her  nearer  presence  as  she 
stole  breathless  across  the  dark  path,  and  stood  there 
behind  him  with  outstretched  hands,  her  whole  being 
merged  in  that  mute  appeal. 

The  music  died,  the  violin  slipped  from  beneath  his 
chin,  the  bow  dropped  and  his  head  fell  on  his  arms. 
Then  he  felt  a  touch  on  his  shoulder  and  heard  the 
whisper :  "Hugh !  Hugh !" 

"Jessica  I"  he  cried,  and  sprang  to  his  feet. 

In  those  three  words  all  was  asked  and  answered.  It 
did  not  need  the  low  cry  with  which  she  flung  herself  on 
her  knees  beside  the  rough-hewn  steps,  or  the  broken 
sentences  with  which  he  poured  out  the  fear  and  hope 
that  he  had  battled  with. 

"I  have  watched  every  day  and  listened  every  night," 
she  said.  "I  knew  that  you  would  come — that  you  must 
come  back !" 

"If  I  had  never  gone,  Jessica !"  he  exclaimed.  "Then 
I  might  have  seen  my  father !  But  I  didn't  know — " 

She  clasped  her  hands  together.  (fYon  know  now — 
you  remember  it  all  ?" 

He  shook  his  head.  "I  have  been  there" — he  pointed 
to  the  hillside — "and  I  have  guessed  who  it  is  that  lies 
there.  I  know  I  sinned  against  him  and  against  myself, 
and  left  him  to  die  unforgiving.  That  is  what  the 

256 


THE    CALL   OF   LOVE 

statue  said  to  me — as  he  must  have  said :  I  am  no  more 
worthy  to  be  catted  thy  son." 

"Ah,"  she  cried,  "he  knew  and  he  forgave  you,  Hugh. 
His  last  thought  was  of  your  coming!  That  is  why  I 
carved  the  figure  there." 

"You  carved  it?"  he  exclaimed.  She  bent  her  fore 
head  to  his  hands,  as  they  clasped  her  own. 

"The  prodigal  is  yourself,"  she  said.  "I  modelled  it 
once  before  when  you  came  back  to  him,  in  the  time  you 
have  forgotten.  But  I  destroyed  it," — the  words  were 
very  low  now — "on  my  wedding-day." 

His  hands  released  hers,  and,  looking  up,  she  saw, 
even  in  the  moonlight,  that  with  the  last  word  his  face 
had  gone  ghastly  white.  At  the  sight,  timidity,  maid 
enly  reserve,  fell,  and  all  the  woman  in  her  rushed  up 
permost.  She  lifted  her  arms  and  clasped  his  face. 

"Hugh,"  she  cried,  "can't  you  remember  ?  Don't  you 
understand  ?  Think !  I  was  blind,  dear,  blind — a  white 
bandage  was  across  my  eyes,  and  you  came  to  me  in  a 
shaded  room !  Why  did  you  come  to  me  ?" 

A  spark  seemed  to  dart  through  his  brain,  like  the 
prickling  discharge  from  a  Leyden  jar.  A  spot  of  the 
mental  blackness  visualized,  and  for  an  instant  sprang 
out  in  outlines  of  red.  He  smelled  the  odor  of  jasmin 
flowers.  He  saw  himself  standing,  facing  a  figure  with 

257 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

bandaged  eyes.  He  saw  the  bandage  torn  off,  felt  that 
yielding  body  in  his  arms,  heard  a  voice — her  voice — 
crying,  "Hugh — Hugh!  My  husband!"  and  felt  those 
lips  pressed  to  his  own  in  the  tense  air  of  a  darkened 
room. 

A  cry  broke  from  his  lips :  "Yes,  yes !  I  remember ! 
Jessica,  my  wife !"  His  arms  went  round  her,  and  with 
a  little  sob  she  nestled  close  to  him  on  the  doorstep. 

The  blank  might  close  again  about  him  now !  He  had 
had  that  instantaneous  glimpse  of  the  past,  like  light 
ning  through  a  rifted  pall,  and  in  that  glimpse  was  joy. 
For  him  there  was  now  no  more  consciousless  past  or 
remorseful  present.  No  forgery  or  exile,  no  Prender- 
gast,  or  hatred,  or  evil  repute.  For  her,  all  that  had  em 
bittered,  all  that  stood  for  loss  and  grieving,  was  ended. 
The  fire  on  the  hearth  behind  them  domed  and  sank, 
and  far  below  the  lights  of  the  streets  wavered  un 
heeded. 

The  shadowed  silence  of  the  cathedral  pines  closed 
them  round.  Above  in  the  calm  sky  the  great  constella 
tions  burned  on  and  swung  lower,  and  in  that  dim  con 
fessional  she  absolved  him  from  all  sin. 


258 


CHAPTER   XXX 

IN   A   FOREST   OF   ARDEST 

Keen,,  morning  sunlight,  a  sky  clean  as  a  hound's 
tooth,  and  an  air  cool  and  tinctured  with  the  wine  of 
perfect  autumn !  Jessica  breathed  it  deeply  as  her  buoy 
ant  step  carried  her  along  the  mountain  trails,  brave  in 
the  pageant  of  the  passing  year.  Her  face  reflected  the 
rich  color  and  her  eyes  were  deep  as  the  sky. 

Only  last  night  had  been  that  sweet  unfolding  in 
which  the  past  had  been  swept  away  for  ever.  To-day 
her  heart  was  almost  too  full  to  bear,  beating  to  thought 
of  the  man  to  whose  arms  the  violin  had  called  her. 
That  had  been  the  hour  of  confidence,  of  love's  sacra 
ment,  the  closure  of  all  her  distrust  and  agony.  Now 
she  longed  inexpressibly  for  the  further  assurance  she 
knew  would  look  from  his  eyes  to  hers ;  yet  her  joy  was 
so  poignant  that  it  was  near  to  pain,  and  withal  was  so 
enwound  with  maidenly  consciousness  that,  knowing 
him  near,  she  must  have  fled  from  him.  She  walked 
rapidly  on,  losing  herself  in  the  windings  of  blind  wood- 
paths,  revelling  in  the  beauty  of  the  silent,  empty  forest. 

259 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

The  morning  had  found  the  man  whose  image  filled 
her  mental  horizon  no  less  a  prey  to  conflicting  emotions 
than  herself.  That  hour  on  the  mountain-side,  under  the 
stars,  had  left  Harry  possessed  of  a  melee  of  perplexing 
emotions.  Dreaming  and  waking,  Jessica's  face  hung 
before  his  eyes,  her  voice  sounded  in  his  ear.  Yet  over 
his  happiness  more  than  once  a  chill  had  fallen,  an  odd 
shrinking,  an  unexplainable  sense  of  flush,  of  fastidi 
ousness,  of  mortification.  This  subtle  conflict  of  feeling, 
not  understood,  had  driven  him,  in  sheer  nervousness,  to 
the  peaceful  healing  of  the  solitudes. 

The  future  held  no  longer  any  doubt — it  held  only 
her.  Where  was  that  future  to  be  ?  Back  in  the  city  to 
which  his  painful  curiosity  had  so  lately  driven  him? 
This  lay  no  longer  in  his  own  choice;  it  was  for  her  to 
decide  now,  Jessica — his  wife.  He  said  the  word  softly, 
under  his  breath,  to  the  sweet  secret  grasses,  as  some 
thing  mysterious  and  sacred.  How  appealing,  how  wom 
anly  she  was — how  incommunicably  dear,  how — 

He  looked  up  transfixed,  for  she  stood  there  before 
him,  ankle-deep  in  a  brown  whirlwind  of  leaves  from  a 
frost-stung  oak,  her  hand  to  her  cheek  in  an  adorable 
gesture  that  he  knew,  her  lips  parted  and  eager.  She 
said  no  word,  nor  did  he,  but  he  came  swiftly  and  caught 
her  to  him,  and  her  face  buried  itself  on  his  breast. 

260 


IN   A   FOEEST    OF    AEDEN 

As  he  looked  down  at  her  thus  folded,  the  trouble, 
the  sense  of  vexing  complexity  vanished,  and  the  primi 
tive  demand  reasserted  its  sway.  Presently  he  released 
her,  and  drew  her  gently  to  a  seat  on  the  sprawling  oak 
roots.  •  • 

"I  wanted  so  to  find  you,"  she  said.  "I  have  so  many, 
many  things  to  say." 

"It  is  all  wonderfully  strange  and  new  I"  he  said.  "It 
is  as  though  I  had  rubbed  Aladdin's  lamp,  and  sud 
denly  had  my  heart's  desire." 

"Ah,"  she  breathed,  "am  I  that?" 

"More  than  that,  and  yet  once  I — Jessica,  Jessica! 
When  I  woke  this  morning  in  the  cabin  down  there,  it 
seemed  to  me  for  a  moment  that  only  last  night  was 
real,  and  all  the  past  an  ugly  dream.  How  could  you 
have  loved  me  ?  And  how  could  I  have  thrown  my  pearl 
away  ?" 

"We  are  not  to  think  of  that,"  she  protested,  "never, 
never  any  more." 

"You.  are  right,"  he  rejoined  cheerfully;  "it  is  what 
is  to  come  that  we  must  think  of."  He  paused  an  in 
stant,  then  he  said: 

"Last  night,  when  you  told  me  of  the  white  house  in 
the  aspens,  I  did  not  tell  you  that  I  had  just  come  from 
there — from  Aniston." 

261 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

She  made  an  exclamation  of  wonder.  "Tell  me,"  she 
said. 

Sitting  with  her  hand  in  his,  he  told  of  that  night's 
experiences,  the  fear  that  had  held  him  as  he  gazed  at 
her  portrait  in  the  library,  the  secret  of  the  Korean  desk 
that  had  solaced  his  misery  and  sent  him  back  to  the 
father  he  was  not  to  see. 

At  mention  of  the  will  she  threw  out  her  hand  with 
a  passionate  gesture.  "The  money  is  not  mine !"  she 
cried.  "It  is  yours !  He  intended  to  change  it — he  told 
me  so  the  day  he  died.  Oh,  if  you  think  I — " 

"No,  no,"  he  said  gently.  "There  is  no  resentment,  no 
false  pride  in  my  love,  Jessica.  I  am  thinking  of  you — 
and  of  Aniston.  You  would  have  me  go  back,  would 
you  not  ?" 

She  looked  up  smiling  and  slowly  shook  her  head. 
"You  are  a  blind  guesser,"  she  said.  "Don't  you  think 
I  know  what  is  in  your  mind?  Not  Aniston,  Hugh. 
Sometime,  but  not  now — not  yet.  It  is  nearer  than 
that !" 

His  eyes  flowed  into  hers.  "You  understand !  Yes,  it 
is  here.  This  is  where  I  must  finish  my  fight  first.  Yes 
terday  I  would  have  left  Smoky  Mountain  for  ever,  be 
cause  you  were  here.  Now — " 

"I  will  help  you,"  she  said.  "All  the  world  besides 
262 


IN   A   FOREST    OF    ARDEN 

counts  nothing  if  only  we  are  together !  I  could  live  in 
a  cabin  here  on  the  mountain  always,  in  a  Forest  of 
Arden,  till  I  grow  old,  and  want  nothing  but  that — and 
you !"  She  paused,  with  a  happy  laugh,  her  eye  turned 
away. 

A  log  cabin,  but  a  home  glorified  by  her  presence !  In 
a  dozen  words  she  had  sketched  a  sufficient  Paradise. 
As  he  did  not  answer,  she  faced  him  with  crimsoning 
cheeks,  then  reading  his  look  she  suddenly  threw  her 
arms  about  his  neck. 

"Hugh,"  she  cried,  "we  belong  to  each  other  now. 
There  is  no  one  else  to  consider,  is  there  ?  I  want  to  be 
to  you  what  I  haven't  been — to  bear  things  with  you, 
and  help  you." 

He  kissed  her  eyes  and  hair.  "You  have  helped,  you 
do  help  me,  Jessica !"  he  urged.  "But  I  am  jealous  for 
your  love.  It  must  not  be  offended.  The  town  of  Smoky 
Mountain  must  not  sneer — and  it  would  sneer  now." 

"Let  it!"  she  exclaimed  resentfully.  "As  if  I  would 
care!" 

"But  I  would  care,"  he  said  softly.  "I  want  to  climb 
a  little  higher  first." 

She  was  silent  a  moment,  her  fingers  twisting  the 
fallen  leaves.  "You  don't  want  them  to  know  that  I  am 
your  wife  ?" 

263 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"Not  yet — till  I  can  see  my  way." 

She  nodded  and  smiled  and  the  cloud  lifted  from  her 
face.  "Yon  must  know  best,"  she  said.  "This  is  what  I 
shall  do,  then.  I  shall  leave  the  sanatorium  to-morrow. 
The  people  there  are  nothing  to  me,  but  the  town  of 
Smoky  Mountain  is  yours,  and  I  must  be  a  part  of  it, 
too.  I  am  going  to  the  Mountain  Valley  House.  Mrs. 
Halloran  will  take  care  of  me."  She  sprang  to  her  feet 
as  she  added :  "I  shall  go  to  see  her  about  it  now." 

He  knew  the  dear  desire  her  determination  masked — 
to  do  her  part  in  softening  prejudice,  in  clearing  his 
way — and  the  thought  of  her  great-heartedness  brought 
a  mist  to  his  eyes.  He  rose  and  walked  with  her  through 
the  bracken  to  the  road.  They  came  out  to  the  driveway 
just  below  the  trail  that  led  to  the  Knob.  The  bank  was 
high,  and  leaping  first  he  held  up  his  arms  to  her  and 
lifted  her  lightly  down.  In  the  instant,  as  she  lay  in 
his  arms,  he  bent  and  kissed  her  on  the  lips. 

Neither  noted  two  figures  walking  together  that  at 
that  moment  rounded  the  bend  of  the  road  a  little  way 
above.  They  were  Tom  Felder  and  Doctor  Brent,  the 
latter  swinging  a  light  suit-case,  for  he  was  on  his  way 
to  the  station  of  the  valley  railroad.  He  had  chosen  to 
walk  that  he  might  have  a  longer  chat  with  his  friend. 
Both  men  saw  the  kiss  and  instinctively  drew  back,  the 

264 


IN   A   FOEEST    OF   ABDEN 

lawyer  with  a  sudden  color  on  his  face,  the  doctor  with 
a  look  of  blank  astonishment. 

The  latter,  in  one  way,  knew  little  about  the  town. 
Beside  Felder  and  Mrs.  Halloran,  whose  surly  husband 
he  had  once  doctored  when  the  town's  practitioner  was 
away — thereby  earning  her  admiration  and  gratitude — 
there  were  few  with  whom  he  had  more  than  a  nodding 
acquaintance.  He  had  liked  David  Stires,  and  Jessica 
he  genuinely  admired,  though  he  had  thought  her  at 
times  somewhat  distant.  He  himself  had  introduced 
Felder  to  her,  on  one  of  the  latter's  visits.  He  had  not 
observed  that  the  young  lawyer's  calls  had  grown  more 
frequent,  nor  guessed  that  he  had  more  than  once  loi 
tered  on  the  mountain  trails  hoping  to  meet  her. 

The  doctor  noted  now  the  telltale  flush  on  his  com 
panion's  face. 

"We  have  surprised  a  romance,"  he  said,  as  the  two 
unconscious  figures  disappeared  down  the  curving 
stretch.  "Who  is  the  man  ?" 

"He  is  the  one  we  have  been  talking  about." 

The  other  stared.  "Not  your  local  Jekyll  and  Hyde, 
the  sneak  who  lost  his  memory  and  found  himself  an 
honest  man?" 

Felder  nodded.  "His  cabin  is  just  below  here,  on  the 
hillside." 

265 


SATAN    SANDERSON" 

"Good  Lord!"  ejaculated  the  doctor.  "What  an  in 
fernal  pity!  What's  his  name?" 

"Hugh  Stires." 

"Stires?"  the  other  repeated.  "Stires?  How  odd!" 
He  stood  a  moment,  tapping  his  suit-case  with  his  stick. 
Suddenly  he  took  the  lawyer's  arm  and  led  him  into  the 
side-path. 

"Come/'  he  said,  "I  want  to  show  you  something." 

He  led  the  way  quickly  to  the  Knob,  where  he 
stopped,  as  much  astonished  as  his  companion,  for  he 
had  known  nothing  of  the  statue.  They  read  the  words 
chiselled  on  its  base.  "The  prodigal  son,"  said  Felder. 

"Xow  look  at  the  name  on  the  headstone,"  said  the 
physician. 

Felder's  glance  lifted  from  the  stone,  to  peer  through 
the  screening  bushes  to  the  cabin  on  the  shelf  below, 
and  returned  to  the  other's  face  with  quick  compre 
hension.  "You  think — " 

"Who  could  doubt  it?  I  will  arise  and  go  unto  my 
•father.  The  old  man's  whim  to  be  buried  here  had  a 
meaning,  after  all.  The  statue  is  Miss  Holme's  work — 
nobody  in  Smoky  Mountain  could  do  it — and  I've  seen 
her  modelling  in  clay  at  the  sanatorium.  What  we  saw 
just  now  is  the  key  to  what  might  have  been  a  pretty 
riddle  if  we  had  ever  looked  further  than  our  noses. 

266 


IN   A   FOKEST    OF   AEDEN 

It's  a  case  of  a  clever  rascal  and  damnable  propinquity. 
The  ward  has  fallen  in  love  with  the  black  sheep !" 

They  betook  themselves  down  the  mountain  in  silence, 
the  doctor  wondering  how  deep  a  hurt  lay  back  of  that 
instant's  color  on  his  friend's  now  imperturbable  face, 
and  more  than  disturbed  on  Jessica's  account.  Her  care 
for  the  cross-grained,  likable  invalid  had  touched  him. 

"A  fine  old  man  to  own  a  worthless  son,"  he  said  at 
length,  musingly.  "A  gentleman  of  the  old  school.  Your 
amiable  blackleg  has  education  and  good  blood  in  him, 
too!" 

"I've  wondered  sometimes,"  said  Felder,  "if  the  old 
Hugh  Stires,  that  disreputable  one  that  came  here, 
wasn't  the  unreal  one,  and  the  Hugh  Stires  the  town  is 
beginning  to  like,  the  real  one,  brought  back  by  the 
accident  that  took  his  memory.  You  medical  men  have 
cases  of  such  double  identity,  haven't  you  ?" 

"The  books  have,"  responded  the  other,  "but  they're 
like  Kellner's  disease  or  Ludwig's  Angina — nobody  but 
the  original  discoverer  ever  sees  'em." 

As  they  parted  at  the  station  the  doctor  said:  "We 
needn't  take  the  town  into  our  confidence,  eh?  Some 
one  will  stumble  on  the  statue  sooner  or  later,  but  we 
won't  help  the  thing  along."  He  looked  shrewdly  in 
the  other's  face  as  they  shook  hands. 

267 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"You  know  the  old  saying :  There's  as  many  good  fish 
in  the  sea  as  ever  were  caught." 

The  lawyer  half  laughed.  "Don't  worry/'  he  said. 
"If  I  had  been  in  danger,  the  signal  was  hung  out  in 
plenty  of  time  I" 


268 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

THE  EEVELATION   OF   HALLELUJAH   JONES 

Hallelujah  Jones  was  in  his  element.  With  his 
wheezy  melodeon,  his  gasoline  flare  and  his  wild  earnest 
ness,,  he  crowded  the  main  street  of  the  little  mining- 
town,  making  the  engagement  of  the  "San  Francisco 
Amazons"  at  the  clapboard  "opera  house"  a  losing  ven 
ture.  The  effete  civilization  of  wealthy  bailiwicks  did 
not  draw  forth  his  powers  as  did  the  open  and  un- 
veneered  debaucheries  of  less  restricted  settlements. 
Against  these  he  could  inveigh  with  surety,  at  least,  of 
an  appreciative  audience. 

He  had  not  lacked  for  listeners  here,  for  he  was  a 
new  sensation.  His  battered  music-box,  with  its  huge 
painted  text,  was  far  and  away  more  attractive  than  the 
thumping  pianolas  of  the  saloons  or  the  Brobdignagian 
gramophone  of  the  dance-hall,  and  his  old-fashioned 
songs  were  enthusiastically  encored.  When  he  lit  his 
flare  in  the  court-house  square  at  dusk  on  the  second 
evening,  the  office  of  the  Mountain  Valley  House  was 

269 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

emptied  and  the  bar-rooms  and  gaming-tables  well-nigh 
deserted  of  their  patrons. 

Jessica  had  seen  the  mustering  crowd  from  the  hotel 
entrance.  Mrs.  Halloran  had  welcomed  her  errand  that 
day  and  given  her  her  best  room,  a  chamber  overlooking 
the  street.  She  had  persuaded  her  visitor  to  spend  the 
afternoon  and  insisted  that  she  stay  to  supper,  "just  to 
see  how  she  would  like  it  for  a  steady  diet."  Now,  as 
Jessica  passed  along  toward  the  mountain  road,  the 
spectacle  chained  her  feet  on  the  outskirts  of  the  gather 
ing.  She  watched  and  listened  with  a  preoccupied  mind ; 
she  was  thinking  that  on  her  way  to  the  sanatorium  she 
would  cross  to  the  cabin  for  a  good-night  word  with  the 
man  upon  whom  her  every  thought  centered. 

As  it  happened,  however,  Harry  was  at  that  moment 
very  near  her.  Alone  on  the  mountain,  the  perplexing 
conflict  of  feeling  had  again  descended  upon  him.  He 
had  fought  it,  but  it  had  prevailed,  and  at  nightfall  had 
driven  him  down  to  the  town,  where  the  street  preacher 
now  held  forth.  He  stood  alone,  unnoted,  a  little  dis 
tance  away,  near  the  court-house  steps,  where,  by  reason 
of  the  crowd,  Jessica  could  see  neither  him  nor  the  dog 
which  sniffed  at  the  heels  of  the  circle  of  bystanders  as 
if  to  inquire  casually  of  salvation. 

Numbers  were  swelling  now,  and  the  street  preacher, 
270 


REVELATION    OF   HALLELUJAH    JONES 

shaking  back  his  long  hair,  drew  a  premonitory,  waver 
ing  chord  from  his  melodeon,  and  struck  up  a  gospel 

song: 

"My  days  are  gliding  swiftly  by, 

And  I,  a  pilgrim  stranger, 
Would  not  detain  them  as  they  fly, 

These  hours  of  toil  and  danger. 
For  Oh,  we  tread  on  Jordan's  strand, 

Our  friends  are  passing  over, 
And  just  before  the  shining  shore 
We  may  almost  discover." 

The  song  ended,  he  mounted  his  camp-stool  to  pro 
pound  his  usual  fiery  text. 

The  watcher  by  the  steps  was  gazing  with  a  strange, 
alert  intentness.  Something  in  the  scene — the  splutter 
ing,  dripping  flame,  the  music,  the  forensic  earnestness 
of  the  pilgrim — held  him  enthralled.  The  dormant 
sense  that  in  the  recent  weeks  had  again  and  again 
stirred  at  some  elusive  touch  of  memory,  was  throbbing. 
Since  last  night,  with  its  sudden  lightning  flash  of  the 
past  that  had  faded  again  into  blankness,  he  had  been 
as  sensitive  as  a  photographic  plate. 

Hallelujah  Jones  knew  the  melodramatic  value  of 
contrast.  As  his  mood  called,  he  passed  abruptly  from 
exhortation  to  song,  from  prayer  to  fulmination,  and 
he  embellished  his  harangue  with  anecdotes  drawn  from 
his  lifelong  campaign  against  the  Arch-Enemy  of  Souls. 

271 


SATAN    SANDERSON* 

Of  what  he  had  said  the  solitary  observer  had  been 
quite  unconscious.  It  was  the  ensemble — the  repetition 
of  something  experienced  somewhere  before — that  ap 
pealed  to  him.  Suddenly,  however,  a  chance  phrase 
pierced  to  his  understanding. 

Another  moment  and  he  was  leaning  forward,  his 
eyes  fixed,  his  breath  straining  at  his  breast.  For  each 
word  of  the  speaker  now  was  knocking  a  sledge-hammer 
blow  upon  the  blank  wall  in  his  brain.  Hallelujah 
Jones  had  launched  into  the  recital  of  an  incident  which 
had  become  the  chef  d'ouvre  of  his  repertory — a  story 
which,  though  the  stern  charge  of  a  bishop  had  kept 
him  silent  as  to  name  and  locality,  yet,  possessing  the 
vividness  of  an  actual  experience,  had  lost  little  in  the 
telling.  It  was  the  tale  of  an  evening  when  he  had 
peered  through  the  tilted  window  of  a  chapel,  and  seen 
its  dissolute  rector  gambling  on  the  table  of  the  Lord. 

Back  in  the  shadow  the  listener,  breathless  and  star 
ing,  saw  the  scene  unroll  like  the  shifting  slide  of  a 
stereopticon — the  epitaph  on  his  own  dead  self.  Nerve 
and  muscle  and  brain  tightened  as  if  to  withstand  a 
shock,  for  the  man  who  moved  through  the  pictures  was 
himself !  He  saw  the  cards  and  counters  falling  on  the 
table,  the  entrance  of  the  two  intruding  figures,  heard 
Hugh's  wild  laugh  as  he  fled,  and  the  grate  of  the  key 

272 


KEVELATION  OF  HALLELUJAH  JONES 

in  the  lock  behind  him  as  he  stood  in  his  study.  He 
heard  the  rush  of  the  wind  past  the  motor-car,  the  rustle 
of  dry  corn  in  the  hedges,  and  felt  the  mist  beating  on 
his  bare  head — 

"Palms  of  Victory, 
Crowns  of  Glory! 
Palms  of  Victory 
I  shall  wear!" 

He  did  not  know  that  it  was  the  voice  of  the  street 
preacher  which  was  singing  now.  The  words  shrieked 
themselves  through  his  brain.  Harry  Sanderson,  not 
Hugh  Stires!  Not  an  outcast!  Not  criminal,,  thief 
and  forger!  The  curtain  was  rent.  The  dead  wall  in 
his  brain  was  down,  and  the  real  past  swept  over  him  in 
an  ungovernable  flood.  Hallelujah  Jones  had  furnished 
the  clue  to  the  maze.  His  story  was  the  last  great  wave, 
which  had  crumbled,  all  at  once,  the  cliff  of  oblivion 
that  the  normal  process  of  the  recovered  mind  had  been 
stealthily  undermining.  The  formula,  lost  so  long  in 
the  mysterious  labyrinth  of  the  brain,  had  reestab 
lished  itself,  and  the  thousand  shreds  of  recollection 
that  he  had  misconstrued  had  fallen  into  their  true 
place  in  the  old  pattern.  Harry  Sanderson  at  last 
knew  his  past  and  all  of  puzzlement  and  distress  that 
it  had  held. 

273 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

Shaking  in  every  limb  and  feeling  all  along  the 
court-house  wall  like  a  drunken  man,  he  made  his  way 
to  the  further  deserted  street.  A  passer-by  would  have 
shrunk  at  sight  of  his  face  and  his  burning  eyes. 

For  these  months,  he,  the  Reverend  Henry  Sanderson, 
disgraced,  had  suffered  eclipse,  had  been  sunk  out  of 
sight  and  touch  and  hearing  like  a  stone  in  a  pool.  For 
these  months — through  an  accidental  facial  resemblance 
and  a  fortuitous  concurrence  of  circumstances — he  had 
owned  the  name  and  ignominy  of  Hugh  Stires.  And 
Jessica?  Deceived  no  less  than  he,  dating  her  piteous 
error  from  that  mistaken  moment  when  she  had  torn 
the  bandage  from  her  eyes  on  her  wedding-day.  She 
had  never  seen  the  real  Hugh  in  Smoky  Mountain.  She 
must  learn  the  truth.  Yet,  how  to  tell  her?  How  could 
he  tell  her  all? 

At  any  hour  yesterday,  hard  as  the  telling  must  have 
been,  he  could  have  told  her.  Last  night  the  hour  passed. 
How  could  he  tell  her  now?  Yet  she  was  the  real 
Hugh's  wife  by  law  and  right;  he  himself  could  not 
marry  her!  If  God  would  but  turn  back  the  universe 
and  give  him  yesterday ! 

Why  not  be  Hugh  Stires?  The  wild  idea  came  to 
him  to  throw  away  his  own  self  for  ever,  never  to  tell 
her,  never  to  return  to  Aniston,  to  live  on  here  or  fly  to 

374 


REVELATION  OF  HALLELUJAH  JONES 

some  distant  place,  till  years  had  made  recognition  im 
possible.  He  struck  his  forehead  with  his  closed  hand. 
He,  a  priest  of  God,  to  summon  her  to  an  illegal  union  ? 
To  live  a  serial  story  of  hypocrisy,  with  the  guilty 
shadow  of  the  living  Hugh  always  between  them,  the 
sword  of  Damocles  always  suspended  above  their  heads, 
to  cleave  to  the  heart  of  his  Fool's  Paradise  ?  The  mad 
thought  died.  Yet  what  justice  of  Heaven  was  it  that 
Jessica,  whose  very  soul  had  been  broken  on  the  wheel, 
should  now,  through  no  conscious  fault,  be  led  by  his 
hand  through  a  new  Inferno  of  suffering  ? 

His  feet  dragging  as  though  from  cold,  he  climbed 
the  mountain  road.  As  he  walked  he  took  from  his 
pocket  the  little  gold  cross,  and  his  fingers,  numb  with 
misery,  tied  it  to  his  thong  watch-guard.  It  had  been 
only  a  bauble,  a  pocket-piece  acquired  he  knew  not  when 
or  how;  now  he  knew  it  for  the  badge  of  his  calling. 
He  remembered  now  that,  pressed  a  certain  way,  it 
would  open,  and  engraved  inside  were  his  name  and  the 
date  of  his  ordination. 

He  might  shut  the  cabin  door,  but  he  could  not  for 
bid  the  torturer  that  came  with  him  across  the  threshold. 
He  might  throw  himself  upon  his  knees  and  bury  his 
face  in  the  rough  skin  of  the  couch,  but  he  could  not 
shut  out  words  that  blent  in  golden-lettered  flashes 

275 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

across  his  throbbing  eyeballs :    Thou  shalt  not  covet  tliy 
neighbor's  wife. 

So  he  crouched,  a  man  under  whose  feet  life  had 
crashed,  leaving  him  pinned  beneath  the  wreck,  to  watch 
the  fire  that  must  creep  nearer  and  nearer. 


276 


CHAPTEK  XXXII 

THE   WHITE   HORSE   SKIN 

Curiosity  held  Jessica  until  the  evangelist  closed  his 
melodeon  preparatory  to  a  descent  upon  the  dance-hall. 
Then,  thinking  of  the  growing  dark  with  some  trepida 
tion — for  the  recent  "strike"  had  brought  its  influx  of 
undesirable  characters  to  the  town — she  started  toward 
the  mountain. 

Ahead  of  her  a  muffled  puff-puff  sounded,  and  the 
dark  bulk  of  an  automobile — the  sheriff's,  the  only  one 
the  town  of  Smoky  Mountain  boasted — was  moving 
slowly  in  the  same  direction,  and  she  quickened  her  pace, 
glad  of  this  quasi-company.  It  soon  forged  ahead,  but 
she  had  passed  the  outskirts  of  the  town  then  and  was 
not  afraid. 

A  little  way  up  the  ascent  a  cumbrous  shadow  startled 
her.  She  saw  in  a  moment  that  it  was  the  automobile, 
halted  at  the  side  of  the  road.  Her  footsteps  made  no 
sound  and  she  was  close  upon  it  when  she  saw  the  three 
men  it  had  carried  standing  near-by.  She  made  to  pass 
them,  and  had  crossed  half  the  intervening  space,  when 

277 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

some  instinct  sent  her  to  the  shade  of  the  trees.  They 
had  stopped  opposite  the  hydraulic  concession,  where  a 
side  path  left  the  main  road — it  was  the  same  path  by 
which  she  and  Emmet  Prendergast  had  taken  their  un 
conscious  burden  on  a  night  long  ago — leading  along  the 
hillside,  overlooking  the  snake-like  flume,  and  forming  a 
steeper  short-cut  to  the  cabin  above.  They  were  con 
versing  in  low  tones,  and  as  they  talked  they  pointed, 
she  thought  toward  it. 

Jessica  had  never  in  her  life  been  an  eavesdropper, 
but  her  excited  senses  made  her  anxious.  Moreover, 
she  was  in  a  way  committed,  for  she  could  not  now 
emerge  without  being  seen.  As  she  waited,  a  man  came 
from  the  path  and  joined  the  others.  The  sky  had  been 
overcast  and  gloomy,  but  the  moon  drew  out  just  then 
and  she  saw  that  the  new-comer,  evidently  a  patrol, 
carried  a  rifle  in  the  hollow  of  his  arm.  She  also  saw 
that  one  of  the  first  three  was  the  automobile's  owner. 

For  some  minutes  they  conversed  in  undertones, 
whose  very  secrecy  inflamed  her  imagination.  It  seemed 
to  her  that  they  made  some  reference  to  the  flume.  Had 
there  been  another  robbery  of  the  sluice-boxes,  and  could 
they  still  suspect  Hugh  ? 

Dread  and  indignation  made  her  bold.  When  they 
turned  into  the  path  she  followed,  treading  noiselessly, 

278 


THE    WHITE    HORSE    SKIN 

till  she  was  close  behind  them.  They  had  stopped  again, 
and  were  looking  intently  at  a  shadowy  gray  something 
that  moved  in  the  bottom  below. 

She  heard  the  man  who  carried  the  rifle  say,  with  a 
smothered  laugh: 

"It's  only  Barney  McGinn's  old  white  horse  taking  a 
drink  out  of  the  sluice-box.  He  often  does  that." 

Then  the  sheriff's  voice  said:  "McGinn's  horse  is  in 
town  to-night,  with  Barney  on  her  back.  Horse  or  no 
horse,  I'm  going  to" — the  rest  was  lost  in  the  swift 
action  with  which  he  snatched  the  firearm  from  the  first 
speaker,  sighted,  and  fired. 

In  the  still  night  the  concussion  seemed  to  rock  the 
ground,  and  roused  a  hundred  echoes.  It  startled  and 
shocked  the  listening  girl,  but  not  so  much  as  the  sound 
that  followed  it — a  cry  that  had  nothing  animal-like, 
and  that  sent  the  men  running  down  the  slope  toward 
an  object  that  lay  huddled  by  the  sluice-box. 

In  horrified  curiosity  Jessica  followed,  slipping  from 
shadow  to  shadow.  She  saw  the  sheriff  kneel  down  and 
draw  a  collapsed  and  empty  horse's  skin  from  a  figure 
whose  thieving  cunning  it  would  never  cloak  again. 

"So  it  was  you,  after  all,  Prendergast !"  the  sheriff 
said  contemptuously. 

The  white  face  stared  up  at  them,  venomous  and 
279 


SATAN"   SANDERSON" 

writhing,  turning  about  the  circle  as  though  searching 
for  some  one  who  was  not  there. 

"How  did — you  guess?" 

The  sheriff,  who  had  been  making  a  swift  examina 
tion,  answered  the  panted  question.  "You  have  no  time 
to  think  of  that  now/'  he  said. 

A  sinister  look  darted  into  the  filming  yellow  eyes, 
and  hatred  and  certainty  rekindled  them.  Prendergast 
struggled  to  a  sitting  posture,  then  fell  back,  convulsed. 
"Hugh  Stires  !  He  was  the  only — one  who  knew — how 
it  was  done.  He's  clever,  but  he  can't  get  the  best  of 
Prendergast!"  A  spasm  distorted  his  features.  "Wait 
—wait !" 

He  fumbled  in  his  breast  and  his  fingers  brought 
forth  a  crumpled  piece  of  paper.  He  thrust  it  into  the 
sheriff's  hands. 

"Look !  Look  !"  he  gasped.  "The  man  they  found 
murdered  on  the  claim  there" — he  pointed  wildly  up 
the  hillside — "Doctor  Moreau.  I  found  him — dying! 
Stires—" 

Strength  was  fast  failing  him.  He  tried  again  to 
speak,  but  only  inarticulate  sounds  came  from  his 
throat. 

A  blind  terror  had  clutched  the  heart  of  the  girl 
leaning  from  the  shadow.  "Doctor  Moreau"— "mur- 

280 


THE    WHITE    HOESE    SKIN 

dered."  Why,  he  had  been  one  of  Hugh's  friends! 
Why  did  this  man  couple  Hugh's  name  with  that  worst 
of  crimes  ?  What  dreadful  thing  was  he  trying  to  tell  ? 
She  hardly  repressed  a  desire  to  scream  aloud. 

"Be  careful  what  you  say,  Prendergast,"  said  the 
sheriff  sternly. 

The  wretched  man  gathered  force  for  a  last  effort. 
His  voice  came  in  a  croaking  whisper: 

"It  was  Stires  killed  him.  Moreau  wrote  it  down — 
and  I — kept  the  paper.  Tell  Hugh — we  break — even !" 

That  was  all.  His  head  fell  back  with  a  shiver,  and 
Emmet  Prendergast  was  gone  on  a  longer  journey  than 
ever  his  revenge  could  warm  him. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

THE  RENEGADE 

While  the  man  whom  the  town  knew  as  Hugh  Stires 
listened  to  the  tale  of  the  street  preacher,  another,  un 
like  yet  curiously  like  him  in  feature,  had  slowly  climbed 
the  hilly  slope  from  the  north  by  the  sanatorium  road. 
He  walked  with  a  jaunty  swagger  bred  of  too  frequent 
applications  to  a  flask  in  his  pocket. 

Since  the  evening  of  the  momentous  scene  in  the 
chapel  with  Harry  Sanderson,  Hugh  had  had  more  and 
more  recourse  to  that  black  comforter.  It  had  grown 
to  be  his  constant  companion.  When,  late  on  the  night 
of  the  game,  some  miles  away,  he  had  gloatingly  counted 
the  money  in  his  pockets,  he  had  found  nearly  a  thou 
sand  dollars  in  double-eagles,  and  a  single  red  counter — 
the  last  he  had  had  to  stake  against  Harry's  gold.  He 
put  the  crimson  disk  into  his  pocket,  "to  remember  the 
bishop  by/'  he  thought  with  a  chuckle,  but  the  fact  that 
for  each  of  the  counters  Harry  had  won  he  had  sworn 
to  render  a  day  of  clean  and  decent  living,  he  straight 
way  forgot.  For  the  other's  position  he  had  wasted  no 

282 


THE  EENEGADE 

pity.  Harry  would  find  it  difficult  to  explain  the  mat 
ter  to  the  bishop !  Well,  if  it  "broke"  him,  served  him 
right !  What  business  had  he  to  set  himself  so  far  above 
every  one  else? 

For  some  time  thereafter  Hugh  had  seriously  con 
templated  going  abroad,  for  a  wholesome  fear  had 
dogged  him  in  his  flight  from  Smoky  Mountain.  For 
weeks  he  had  travelled  by  night,  scanning  the  daily 
newspapers  with  a  desperate  anxiety,  his  ears  keen  for 
hue  and  cry.  But  with  money  in  his  pocket,  courage 
returned,  and  in  the  end  fear  lulled.  There  had  been 
no  witness  to  that  deed  on  the  hillside.  There  might 
be  suspicion,  but  no  more!  At  length  the  old-time 
attraction  of  the  race-course  had  absorbed  him.  He  had 
followed  the  horses  in  "the  circuit,"  winning  and  losing, 
consorting  with  the  tipsters,  growing  heavier  with  gen 
erous  living,  and  welcoming  excitement  and  change. 
But  the  ghost  of  Doctor  Moreau  haunted  him,  and  would 
not  be  exorcized. 

Money,  however,  could  not  last  always,  and  a  persist 
ent  run  of  ill  luck  depleted  his  store.  When  poverty 
again  was  at  his  elbow  a  vagrant  rumor  had  told  him, 
with  the  usual  exaggerations,  of  the  rich  "find"  on  the 
Little  Paymaster  Claim  on  Smoky  Mountain.  Too  late 
he  cursed  the  reasonless  panic  that  had  sent  him  into 

283 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

flight.  Had  the  ground  been  "jumped"  by  some  one 
who  now  profited?  Nevertheless,  it  was  still  his  own 
to  claim ;  miners'  law  gave  him  a  year,  and  he  had  left 
enough  possessions  in  the  cabin,  he  thought  cunningly, 
to  disprove  abandonment.  He  dreaded  a  return,  but 
want  and  cupidity  at  length  overcame  his  fears.  He 
had  arrived  at  Smoky  Mountain  on  this  night  to  claim 
his  own. 

As  he  walked  unsteadily  along,  Hugh  drank  more 
than  once  from  the  flask  to  deaden  the  superstitious 
dread  of  the  place  which  was  stealing  over  him.  On 
the  crest  of  the  ridge  he  skirted  the  sanatorium  grounds 
and  at  length  gained  the  road  that  twisted  down  toward 
the  lights  of  the  town.  In  the  dubious  moonlight  he 
mistook  the  narrow  trail  to  the  Knob  for  the  lower  path 
to  the  cabin.  As  he  turned  into  it,  the  report  of  a  rifle 
came  faintly  from  the  gulch  below.  It  seemed  to  his 
excited  senses  like  the  ghostly  echo  of  a  shot  he  had 
himself  fired  there  on  a  night  like  this  long  before — a 
hollow  echo  from  another  world. 

He  quickened  his  steps  and  stumbled  all  at  once  into 
the  little  clearing  that  held  the  new-made  grave  and 
Jessica's  statue.  The  sight  terrified  his  intoxicated 
imagination.  His  hair  rose.  The  name  on  the  head 
stone  was  STIRES,  and  there  was  himself — no,  a  ghost 

284 


THE    KENEGADE 

of  himself  ! — sitting  near  !  He  turned  and  broke  into  a 
run  down  the  steep  slope.  In  his  fear — for  he  imagined 
the  white  figure  was  pursuing  him — he  tripped  and  fell, 
regained  his  feet,  rushed  across  the  level  space,  threw 
his  weight  against  the  cabin  door,  and  burst  into  the 
room. 

A  dog  sprang  up  with  a  growl,  and  in  the  light  of  the 
fire  that  burned  on  the  hearth,  a  man  sitting  at  the 
rough-hewn  table  lifted  a  haggard  face  from  his  arms 
and  each  recognized  the  other. 

The  ghost  was  gone  now  before  firelight  and  human 
presence,  and  Hugh,  with  a  loud  laugh  of  tipsy  in 
credulity,  stood  staring  at  the  man  before  him. 

"Harry  Sanderson !"  he  cried.  "By  the  great  horn 
spoon  I"  His  shifty  eyes  surveyed  the  other's  figure — 
the  corduroys,  the  high  laced  boots,  the  soft  blue  flannel 
shirt.  "Not  exactly  in  purple  and  fine  linen,"  he  said — 
the  impudent  swagger  of  intoxication  had  slipped  over 
him  again,  and  his  boisterous  laugh  broke  with  a  hic 
cough.  "I  thought  the  gospel  game  was  about  played 
out  that  night  in  the  chapel.  And  now  you  are  willing 
to  take  a  hint  from  the  prodigal.  How  did  you  find 
my  nest?  And  perhaps  you  can  tell  me  who  has  been 
making  himself  so  infernally  at  home  here  lately  ?" 

"I  have,"  said  Harry  evenly. 
285 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

Hugh's  glance,  that  had  been  wavering  about  the  neat 
interior,  returned  to  Harry,  and  knowledge  and  anger 
leaped  into  it.  "So  it  was  you,  was  it  ?  You  are  the  one 
who  has  been  trying  his  hand  as  a  claim-jumper !"  He 
lurched  toward  the  table  and  leaned  upon  it.  "I've  al 
ways  heard  that  the  devil  took  care  of  his  own.  The 
runaway  rector  stumbles  on  my  manor,  and  with  his 
usual  luck — 'Satan's  luck'  we  called  it  at  college — steps 
in  just  in  time  to  strike  it  rich  I" 

He  stretched  his  hand  suddenly  and  caught  a  tiny 
object  that  glittered  against  Harry's  coat — the  little 
gold  cross,  which  the  other  had  tied  to  his  watch-guard. 
The  thong  snapped  and  Hugh  sent  the  pendant  rattling 
across  the  doorway. 

"You  were  something  of  a  howling  swell  as  a  parson," 
he  said  insolently,  "but  you  don't  need  the  jewelry 
now !" 

Harry  Sanderson's  eyes  had  not  left  Hugh's  face;  he 
was  thinking  swiftly.  The  bolt  from  the  blue  had  been 
so  recent  that  this  sudden  apparition  seemed  a  natural 
concomitant  of  the  situation.  Only  the  problem  was 
no  longer  imminent;  it  was  upon  him.  Jessica  was  not 
for  him — he  had  accepted  that.  Though  the  clock  might 
not  turn  backward,  this  man  must  stand  between  them. 
Yet  his  presence  now  in  the  predicament  was  intolera- 

286 


THE  KENEGADE 

ble.  This  drunken,  criminal  maligner  had  it  in  his 
power  to  precipitate  the  climax  for  her  in  a  coarse  and 
brutal  expose.  Hugh  had  no  idea  of  the  true  tangle, 
else  he  had  not  been  seen  in  the  town.  But  if  not  to 
night,  then  to-morrow !  Harry's  heart  turned  cold  with 
in  him.  If  he  could  eliminate  Hugh  from  the  problem 
till  he  could  see  his  way ! 

"Well,"  said  Hugh  with  a  sneer,  "what  have  you  got 
to  say?" 

Harry  rose  slowly  and  pushed  the  door  shut.  "When 
we  last  met,"  he  said,  "what  you  most  wanted  was  to 
leave  the  country." 

"I  changed  my  mind,"  retorted  Hugh.  "I've  got  a 
right  to  do  that,  I  suppose.  I've  come  back  now  to  get 
what  is  mine,  and  I'll  have  it,  too!"  He  rapped  the 
table  with  his  knuckles. 

Hugh  had  no  recollection  now  of  past  generosities. 
His  selfish  materialism  saw  only  money  that  might  be 
his.  "I  know  all  about  the  strike,"  he  went  on,  "and 
there's  no  green  in  my  eye !" 

"How  much  will  you  take  for  the  property  ?" 

Hugh  laughed  again  jeeringly.  "That's  your  game, 
is  it?  But  I'm  not  such  a  numskull!  Whatever  you 
could  offer,  it's  worth  more  to  me.  You've  found  a  good 
thing  here,  and  you'd  like  to  skin  me  as  a  butcher  skins 

287 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

a  sheep."  In  the  warmer  air  of  the  cabin  the  liquor  he 
had  drunk  was  firing  his  brain,  and  an  old  suspicion 
leaped  to  his  tongue. 

"I  know  you,  Satan  Sanderson,"  he  sneered.  "You 
were  always  the  same  precious  hypocrite  in  the  old  days, 
pretending  to  be  so  almighty  virtuous,  while  you  looked 
out  for  number  one.  I  saw  through  you  then,  too,  when 
you  were  posing  as  my  friend  and  trying  your  best  all 
along  to  queer  me  with  the  old  man!  I  knew  it  well 
enough.  I  knew  what  the  reason  was,  too !  You  wanted 
Jessica !  You — " 

Self-control  left  Harry  suddenly,  as  a  ship's  sail  is 
whipped  from  its  gaskets  in  a  white  squall.  Before  the 
words  could  be  uttered,  his  fingers  were  at  Hugh's 
throat. 

At  that  instant  there  was  the  sound  of  running  feet 
outside,  a  hurried  knock  at  the  door  and  an  agitated 
voice  that  chilled  Harry's  blood  to  ice. 

His  hands  relaxed  their  hold;  he  dragged  Hugh  to 
the  door  of  the  inner  room,  thrust  him  inside,  shut  and 
bolted  it  upon  him. 

Then  he  went  and  opened  the  outer  door. 


288 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

THE  TEMPTATION 

Jessica's  eyes  met  Harry's  in  a  look  he  could  not 
translate,  save  that  it  held  both  yearning  and  anguish. 

The  accusation  of  Prendergast  had  stunned  her  fac 
ulties.  As  in  an  evil  dream,  with  the  low  breeze  mur 
muring  by  and  the  fitful  moon  overhead,  she  had  seen 
the  sheriff  rise  to  his  feet  and  methodically  put  the 
fragment  of  paper  into  his  pocket-book.  A  moment 
later  she  was  running  up  the  dark  path,  her  thoughts  a 
confusion  in  which  only  one  coherent  purpose  stood 
distinct — to  warn  him.  They  would  know  no  need  to 
hasten.  If  the  man  she  loved  had  reached  the  cabin, 
she  would  be  before  them. 

Not  that  she  believed  him  guilty;  in  his  lost  past 
there  could  be  no  stain  so  dark  as  that !  She  recalled 
the  look  of  personal  hatred  she  had  once  surprised  on 
Prendergast's  face.  He  hated  Hugh,  and  dying,  had 
left  this  black  lie  behind  to  do  him  a  mischief.  He  was 
innocent,  innocent !  But  would  the  charge  not  be  be 
lieved  ?  They  would  arrest  him,  drag  him  down  to  the 

289 


SATAN  SANDERSON 

town,  to  the  brick  jail  on  the  court-house  square.  The 
community  was  prejudiced.  Innocent  men  had  been 
convicted  before  of  crimes  they  never  committed.  In 
those  breathless  minutes  she  did  not  reason  further; 
she  knew  only  that  a  vital  danger  threatened  him,  and 
that  he  must  fly  from  it.  The  lighted  pane  had  told 
her  the  occupant  of  the  cabin  had  returned. 

She  stood  before  the  door,  her  hands  clasped  tightly, 
her  eyes  on  Harry's  face,  even  in  this  crucial  moment 
drinking  in  thirstily  what  she  saw  there;  for  in  this 
crisis,  hanging  on  the  narrow  verge  of  catastrophe,  when 
he  had  need  to  summon  all  his  store  of  poise  and  con 
tained  strength,  his  look  melted  over  her  in  a  mist  of 
tenderness. 

"What  has  happened  ?"  he  asked. 

He  did  not  offer  to  touch  or  to  kiss  her,  but  this  she 
did  not  remember  till  afterward.  In  what  words  could 
she  tell  him?  Would  he  think  she  believed  him  guilty 
when  she  besought  him  to  fly  ?  She  answered  simply,  di 
rectly,  with  only  a  deep  appeal  in  her  eyes : 

"Men  will  be  here  soon — men  from  the  town.  I  over 
heard  them.  I  wanted  to  let  you  know !"  she  hesitated ; 
it  had  grown  all  at  once  difficult  to  put  into  words. 

"Coming  here?    Why?" 

"To  arrest  a  man  who  is  accused  of  murder/' 
290 


THE    TEMPTATION 

If  her  eyes  could  have  pierced  the  bolted  door  a  few 
feet  away !  If  she  could  have  seen  that  listening  face 
behind  it,  as  her  clear  tones  fell,  grow  instinct  with 
recognition,  amazement,  and  evil  suspicion — a  look  that 
her  last  word  swept  into  a  sickly  gray  terror !  If  she  could 
have  heard  the  groan  from  the  wretched  man  beyond ! 

"Whose  murder?" 

"Doctor  Moreau's." 

In  all  Harry  Sanderson's  life  was  to  be  never  such  a 
moment  of  revealment.  He  knew  that  she  meant  him 
self.  The  murderer  of  Doctor  Moreau — Hugh's  one 
time  crony  and  loose  associate,  who  had  shared  in  the 
plunder  of  the  forged  draft,  and  had  then  abandoned 
his  cat's-paw  to  discovery !  The  man  Hugh  had  prom 
ised  to  "pay  off  for  it  some  time !"  Had  Moreau  also 
made  this  his  stamping-ground?  A  swift  memory 
swept  him  of  Hugh's  hang-dog  look,  his  nervous  dread 
when  he  had  begged  in  the  chapel  study  for  money  with 
which  to  leave  the  country.  It  did  not  need  the  smoth 
ered  gasp  from  behind  the  bolted  door  to  point  the  way 
to  the  swift  conclusion  Harry's  mind  was  racing  to.  A 
dull  flush  spread  to  his  forehead. 

Jessica  waited  with  caught  breath,  searching  his 
countenance.  It  was  told  now,  but  he  must  know  that 
she  had  not  credited  it — that  "for  better,  for  worse,"  she 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

must  believe  in  him  now.  "I  knew,  oh,  I  knew !"  she 
cried.  "You  need  not  tell  me !" 

The  hell  of  two  passions  that  were  struggling  within 
him — a  savage  exultation  and  a  submerging  wave  of  pity 
for  her  utter  ignorance,  her  blind  faith,  for  the  painful 
denouement  that  was  rushing  upon  her — died,  and  left 
him  cold  and  still.  "No/'  he  said  gravely,  "I  am  not 
the  man  they  want.  It  has  all  come  back  to  me — the 
past  that  I  had  lost.  Such  a  crime  has  no  part  in  it." 

At  another  time  the  abrupt  news  of  this  retrieval 
must  have  affected  her  strangely,  for  she  had  wondered 
much  concerning  the  return  of  that  memory  that  held 
alike  their  early  love  and  his  own  tragedy  and  shame. 
Now,  however,  a  greater  contingency  absorbed  her.  He 
must  go,  and  without  delay.  Her  lips  were  opened  to 
speak  when  he  closed  the  door  behind  him  and  stepped 
quickly  down  toward  her.  At  all  odds,  he  was  thinking, 
she  must  not  see  the  man  in  that  inner  room !  If  she 
remained  he  could  not  guess  what  shock  might  result. 

"Jessica/'  he  said,  "you  have  tried  to  save  me  from 
danger  to-night.  I  need  a  greater  service  of  you  now; 
it  is  to  ask  no  questions,  but  to  go  at  once.  I  can  not 
explain  why,  but  you  must  not  stay  here  a  moment." 

"Oh,"  she  cried  bitterly,  "you  don't  intend  to  leave! 
You  choose  to  face  it,  and  you  want  to  spare  me.  If 

292 


THE    TEMPTATION 

you  really  want  to  spare  me,  you  will  go!  Why,  you 
would  have  no  chance  where  they  have  hated  you  so. 
Prendergast  was  killed  robbing  the  sluice  to-night,  and 
he  lied — lied — lied !  He  swore  you  did  it,  and  they  will 
believe  it!" 

He  put  back  her  beseeching  hands.  How  could  he 
explain?  Only  to  get  her  away — to  gain  time — to 
think  ! 

"Listen !"  she  went  on  wildly.  "They  will  wait  to 
carry  him  to  the  town.  I  can  go  and  bring  my  horse 
here  for  you.  There  is  time !  You  have  only  to  send 
me  word,  and  I  will  follow  you  to  the  end  of  the  world ! 
Only  say  you  will  go !" 

He  caught  at  the  straw.    The  expedient  might  serve. 

"Very  well,"  he  said;  "bring  him  to  the  upper  trail, 
and  wait  there  for  me." 

She  gave  a  sob  of  relief  at  his  acquiescence.  "I  will 
hurry,  hurry !"  she  cried,  and  was  gone,  swift  as  a  swal 
low-flight,  into  the  darkness. 

As  he  reentered  the  cabin,  the  calmness  fell  from 
Harry  Sanderson  as  a  mask  drops,  and  the  latent  pas 
sion  sprang  in  its  place.  He  crossed  the  room  and  drew 
the  bolt  for  the  wretched  man  who,  after  one  swift 
glance  at  his  face,  grovelled  on  his  knees  before  him, 
sobered  and  shivering. 

293 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"For  God's  sake,  Harry,  you  won't  give  me  up?" 
Hugh  cried.  "You  can't  mean  to  do  that!  Why,  we 
were  in  college  together!  I'd  been  drinking  to-night, 
or  I  wouldn't  have  talked  to  you  as  I  did.  I'm  sober 
enough  now,  Harry !  You  can  have  the  claim.  I'll  give 
it  to  you  and  all  you've  got  out  of  it.  Only  let  me  go 
before  they  come  to  take  me !" 

Harry  drew  his  feet  from  the  frantic  hands  that 
clasped  them.  "Did  you  kill  Moreau  ?"  he  asked  shortly. 

"It  was  an  accident,"  moaned  Hugh.  "I  never  in 
tended  to — I  swear  to  Heaven  I  didn't!  He  hounded 
me,  and  he  tried  to  bleed  me.  I  only  meant  to  frighten 
him  off !  Then — then — I  was  afraid,  and  I  ran  for  it. 
That  was  when  I  came  to  you  at  Aniston  and — we 
played."  Hugh's  breath  came  in  gasps  and  drops  of 
sweat  stood  on  his  forehead. 

A  weird,  crowding  clamor  was  sweeping  through 
Harry's  brain.  When,  at  the  sound  of  Jessica's  voice, 
he  had  thrust  Hugh  into  the  inner  room,  it  had  been 
only  to  gain  time,  to  push  further  back,  if  by  but  a 
moment,  the  shock  which  was  inevitable.  Then,  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  Fate  had  swept  the  board.  Hugh's 
worthless  life  was  forfeit.  He  would  stand  no  longer 
between  him  and  Jessica !  The  enginery  of  the  law 
would  be  their  savior. 

294 


THE   TEMPTATION 

Neither  crime  nor  penalty  was  of  his  making.  He 
owed  Hugh  nothing — the  very  money  he  had  taken  from 
the  ground,  save  a  bare  living,  had  gone  to  pay  his 
thievery.  He  could  surrender  him  to  the  law,  then  take 
Jessica  far  away  where  the  truth  would  come  mercifully 
softened  by  distance  and  lightened  by  future  happiness. 
It  was  not  his  to  intervene,  to  cozen  Justice,  to  com 
pound  a  felony  and  defeat  a  righteous  Providence !  He 
owed  mercy  to  Jessica.  He  owed  none  to  this  cringing, 
lying  thing  before  him,  who  now  reminded  him  of  that 
chapel  game  that  had  ruined  the  Eeverend  Henry  San 
derson  ! 

"When  we  played !"  he  echoed.  "How  have  you  set 
tled  your  debt — the  'debt  of  honor'  you  once  counted  so 
highly?  How  have  you  lived  since  then?  Have  you 
paid  me  those  days  of  decent  living  you  staked,  and 
lost?" 

Hugh  looked  past  him  with  hollow,  hunted  gaze. 
There  was  no  escape,  no  weapon  to  his  hand,  and  those 
eyes  were  on  him  like  unwavering  sparks  of  iron. 

"But  I  will  I"  he  exclaimed  desperately.  "If  you'll 
only  help  me  out  of  this,  I'll  live  straight  to  my  dying 
day!  You  don't  know  how  I've  suffered,  Harry,  or 
you'd  have  some  mercy  on  me  now!  I  can  never  get 
away  from  it  I  That's  why  I  was  drunk  to-day.  Night 

295 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

and  day  I  see  him — Moreau,  as  I  saw  him  lying  here 
that  night  on  the  hillside.  He  haunts  me !  You  don't 
know  what  it  means  to  he  always  afraid,,  to  wake  up  in 
the  night  with  the  feel  of  handcuffs  on  your  wrists,  to 
know  that  such  a  thing  is  behind  you,  following  you, 
following  you,  never  letting  you  rest,  never  forgetting !" 
A  choking  sob  burst  from  his  lips.  "Let  me  go,  Harry," 
he  pleaded ;  "for  my  father's  sake !" 

"Your  father  is  dead,"  said  Harry. 

"Then  for  old-time's  sake !"  He  tried  to  clasp  Harry's 
knees.  "They  may  be  here  at  any  minute!  I  must 
have  been  seen  as  I  crossed  the  mountain !  I  thought  it 
would  never  come  out,  or  I  wouldn't  have  come !  Ill  go 
far  enough  away.  I'll  go  to  South  America,  and  you 
will  never  see  me  alive  again,  neither  you  nor  Jessica ! 
I  knew  her  voice  just  now — I  know  she's  here.  I  don't 
care  how  or  why !  You  don't  need  to  give  me  up  to  get 
her!  I'll  give  her  to  you!  For  God's  sake,  Harry, 
listen!  Jessica  wouldn't  want  to  see  me  hung!  For 
her  sake !" 

Harry  caught  his  breath  sharply.  The  thrust  had 
gone  deep;  it  had  sheared  through  the  specious  argu 
ments  he  had  been  weaving.  The  commandment  that 
an  hour  before  had  etched  itself  in  letters  of  fire  upon 
his  eyelids  hung  again  before  him.  He  had  coveted  his 

296 


THE   TEMPTATION 

neighbor's  wife.  This  man,  felon  as  he  was — pitiful 
hound  to  whom  the  news  of  his  father's  death  brought 
no  flicker  of  sorrow  or  remorse,  who  now  offered  to  bar 
ter  Jessica  for  his  own  safety! — he  himself,  however 
unwittingly,  had  irreparably  wronged.  Between  them 
stood  the  accusing  wraith  of  one  immortal  hour,  when 
the  heart  of  love  had  beat  against  his  own.  If  he  deliv 
ered  Hugh  to  the  hangman,  would  it  be  for  justice's 
sake? 

The  scales  fell  from  his  eyes.  For  him,  loving  Jes 
sica,  it  could  be  only  a  dastard  act.  Yet  if  he  aided  the 
real  Hugh  to  escape,  he,  the  supposititious  Hugh  who 
had  played  his  role,  must  continue  it.  He  must  second 
the  villainy,  and  in  so  doing  play  the  cheaply  tragic 
part.  He  must  pose  as  an  accused  murderer  before  the 
town  whose  good  opinion  he  had  longed  to  gain — before 
Jessica! — until  Hugh  had  had  time  to  win  safe  away! 
He  might  do  even  more.  The  real  Hugh  would  stand 
small  chance;  even  were  the  evidence  not  flawless,  the 
old  record  would  condemn  him.  But  he  himself  had 
lightened  that  record.  He  had  gained  liking  and  sym 
pathy  ;  there  might  be  a  chance  for  him  of  acquittal. 

If  this  might  only  be !  The  truth  then  need  never  be 
known  and  Hugh  Stires,  to  all  belief  having  been  put 
once  in  jeopardy,  need  fear  no  more.  Life  would  be  be- 

297 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

fore  him  again,  to  pay  the  days  of  righteous  living  he 
had  played  for  in  the  chapel  game,  to  reverse  the  record 
of  his  selfish  and  remorseless  career.  If  the  trial  went 
against  him — Hugh  would  have  had  his  chance,  would 
be  far  away.  He,  Harry  Sanderson,  would  not  have  be 
trayed  him.  A  hundred  people,  if  he  chose  to  summon 
them,  would  establish  his  own  identity.  It  would  be 
cheating  justice,  making  a  mock  of  law,  but  he  was  in  a 
position  where  human  statute  must  yield  to  a  higher  rule 
of  action.  The  law  might  punish,  but  he  would  have 
been  true  to  his  own  soul.  Jessica  would  understand. 
The  truth  held  pain  and  shame  for  her,  but  he  would 
have  tried  to  save  her  from  a  greater.  And  he  would 
have  cancelled  his  debt  to  Hugh ! 

It  was  the  Harry  Sanderson  of  St.  James  parish,  of 
the  scrupulous  conscience — whose  college  career  as  Sa 
tan  Sanderson  had  come  to  be  a  fiery  sore  in  his  breast — 
who  now  spoke : 

"Get  up  I"  he  said.  "Have  you  any  money  ?" 

Hugh  rose,  trembling  and  ashen.  "Hardly  ten  dol 
lars,"  he  answered. 

Harry  considered  hastily.  He  was  almost  penniless; 
nearly  all  his  share  of  the  strike  had  gone  to  repay  the 
forged  draft.  "I  have  no  ready  cash/'  he  said,  "but  the 
night  we  played  in  the  chapel,  I  left  a  thousand  dollars 

298 


THE    TEMPTATION 

in  my  study  safe.  I  have  not  been  there  since."  He 
took  pencil  and  paper  from  his  pocket  and  wrote  down 
some  figures  hastily.  "Here  is  the  combination.  You 
must  try  to  get  that  money." 

"Wait,"  he  added,  as  Hugh's  hand  was  on  the  latch. 
He  must  risk  nothing;  he  could  make  assurance  doubly 
sure.  "A  half-mile  from  the  foot  of  the  mountain, 
where  the  road  comes  in  from  Funeral  Hollow,  wait  for 
me.  I  will  bring  a  horse  there  for  you." 

Hugh  crushed  the  paper  into  his  pocket  and  opened 
the  door.  "I'll  wait,"  he  said.  He  darted  out,  slipped 
around  the  corner  of  the  cabin,  and  stealthily  disap 
peared. 

Harry  sat  down  upon  the  doorstep.  The  strain  had 
been  great ;  in  the  reaction,  he  was  faint,  and  a  mist  was 
before  his  eyes.  The  die  was  cast.  Hugh  could  easily 
escape;  until  he  himself  spoke,  he  would  not  even  be 
hunted.  He,  Harry  Sanderson,  was  the  scapegoat,  left 
to  play  his  part. 

How  long  he  sat  there  he  did  not  know.  He  sprang 
up  at  a  muffled  sound.  He  had  still  a  work  to  do  before 
they  came — for  Hugh !  He  saw  in  an  instant,  however, 
that  it  was  Jessica,  leading  her  horse  by  the  bridle. 

"I  could  not  wait,"  she  breathed.  "You  did  not 
come,  and  I  was  afraid !" 

299 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

Mounting,  he  leaned  from  the  saddle  and  took  both 
her  hands  in  his — still  he  did  not  kiss  her. 

"Jessica,  you  believe  I  am  innocent?"  he  asked  anx 
iously. 

"Yes— yes  I" 

"Will  you  believe  what  I  am  doing  is  for  the  best  ?" 

"Always,  always !"  she  whispered,  her  voice  vibrating. 
"Only  go !" 

"Whatever  happens  ?" 

"Whatever  happens !" 

He  released  her  hands  and  rode  quickly  up  the  grassy 
path. 

As  she  stood  looking  after  him,  a  dog's  whine  came 
from  the  cabin.  She  ran  and  released  the  spaniel  and 
took  him  up  in  her  arms. 

As  she  did  so  a  sparkle  caught  her  eye.  It  came  from 
the  tiny  gold  cross  lying  where  Hugh  had  flung  it,  near 
the  lighted  doorway.  She  picked  it  up,  looked  at  it  a 
moment  abstractedly  and  thrust  it  into  her  pocket — 
scarce  consciously,  for  her  heart  was  keeping  time  to 
the  silenced  hoof-beat  that  was  bearing  the  man  she 
loved  from  danger. 

Where  the  way  opened  into  the  gloomy  cut  of  Funeral 
Hollow,  Harry  dismounted  and  went  forward  slowly 

300 


THE    TEMPTATION 

afoot,  leading  the  horse,  till  a  figure  stepped  from  a 
clump  of  bushes  to  meet  him  with  an  exclamation  of  re 
lief.  Hugh  had  waited  at  the  rendezvous  in  shivering 
apprehension  and  dismal  suspicion  of  Harry's  inten 
tions,  and  had  not  approached  till  he  had  convinced 
himself  that  the  other  came  alone.  He  wrung  Harry's 
hand  as  he  said : 

"If  I  get  out  of  this,  I'll  do  better  the  rest  of  my  life, 
I  will,  upon  my  soul,  Harry !" 

"You  may  not  be  able  to  get  into  the  chapel,"  said 
Harry ;  "my  rooms" — he  felt  his  cheek  burn  as  he  spoke 
— "may  be  occupied.  On  the  chance  that  you  fail,  take 
this."  He  took  off  the  ruby  ring,  whose  interlaced  ini 
tials  had  once  fortified  him  in  his  error  of  identity. 
"The  stone  is  worth  a  good  deal.  It  should  be  enough 
to  take  you  anywhere." 

Hugh  nodded,  slipped  the  ring  on  his  finger,  and  rode 
quickly  off.  Then  Harry  turned  and  walked  rapidly 
back  toward  the  town. 


30X 


CHAPTER    XXXV 

FELDER   TAKES   A   CASE 

The  sheriff  stopped  his  automobile  before  the  dingy 
telegraph  office.  The  street  had  been  ringing  that  even 
ing  with  more  exciting  events  than  it  had  known  in  a 
year. 

"He's  off,"  he  said  disgustedly  to  the  men  who  had 
curiously  gathered.  "He  must  have  got  wind  of  it  some 
how,  and  he  had  a  horse  ready.  We  traced  the  hoof- 
prints  from  the  cabin  as  far  as  the  Hollow.  I'm  going 
to  use  the  wire." 

"That's  a  lie!"  rumbled  an  angry  voice  behind  him, 
as  Devlin  strode  into  the  crowd.  "Hugh  Stires  gave 
himself  up  fifteen  minutes  ago  at  the  jail." 

"How  do  you  know  that?"  demanded  the  sheriff,  re 
lieved  but  chagrined  at  his  fool's-errand. 

"Because  I  saw  him  do  it,"  answered  Devlin  surlily. 
"I  was  there." 

"Well,  it  saves  trouble  for  me.  That'll  tickle  you, 
Felder,"  the  sheriff  added  satirically,  turning  toward 
the  lawyer.  "You're  a  sentimentalist,  and  he's  been 
your  special  fancy.  What  do  you  think  now,  eh  ?" 

302 


FELDEK    TAKES    A    CASE 

"I'll  tell  you  what  I  think,"  said  Devlin,  his  big  hands 
working.  "I  think  it's  a  damned  lie  of  Prendergast's !" 

"Oh,  ho!"  exclaimed  the  sheriff  amusedly.  "You 
once  danced  fto  a  different  tune,  Devlin  I" 

The  blood  was  in  the  big,  lowering  face.  "I  did,"  he 
admitted.  "I  went  up  against  him  when  the  liquor  was 
in  me,  and  by  the  same  token  he  wiped  this  street  with 
me.  He  stood  me  fair  and  he  whipped  me,  and  I  needed 
it,  though  I  hated  him  well  enough  afterwards.  An' — 
an'—" 

He  gulped  painfully.    No  one  spoke. 

"It's  many's  the  time  since  then  I've  wished  the  hand 
was  shrivelled  that  heaved  that  rock  at  him  in  the  road ! 
The  day  when  I  saw  my  bit  of  a  lass,  holdin'  to  the 
horse's  mane,  ridin'  to  her  death  in  the  Hollow — an' — 
when  he  brought  her  back — "  He  stopped,  struggling 
with  himself,  tears  rolling  down  his  cheeks. 

"No  murderer  did  that!"  he  burst  out.  "We  gave 
him  the  back  of  the  hand  an'  the  sole  of  the  foot,  an' 
we  kept  to  it,  though  he  fought  it  down  an'  lived 
straight  an'  decent.  He  never  did  it !  I  don't  care  what 
they  say !  I'll  see  Prendergast  in  hell  before  I'll  believe 
it,  or  any  dirty  paper  he  saved  to  swear  a  man's  life 
away." 

The  listeners  were  silent.  No  one  had  ever  heard  such 
303 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

a  speech  from  the  huge  owner  of  the  dance-hall.  The 
sheriff  lighted  a  cigar  before  he  said : 

"That's  all  right,  Devlin.  We  all  understand  your 
prejudices,  but  I'm  afraid  they  haven't  much  weight 
with  legal  minds,  like  Mr.  Folder's  here,  for  instance." 

"Excuse  me,"  said  Felder.  "I  fear  my  prejudices  are 
with  Devlin.  Good  night,"  he  added,  moving  up  the 
street. 

"Where  are  you  bound  ?"  asked  the  other  casually. 

"To  the  jail,"  answered  the  lawyer,  "to  see  a  client — 
I  hope." 

The  sheriff  emitted  a  low  whistle.  "I  hope  there'll  be 
enough  sane  men  left  to  get  a  jury !"  he  said. 


304 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

THE   HAND   AT   THE   DOOR 

At  the  sound  of  steps  in  the  jail  corridor  and  the 
harsh  grating  of  the  key  in  the  lock,  Harry  rose  hastily 
from  the  iron  cot  whereon  he  had  been  sitting  and  took 
a  step  forward. 

"Jessica  I"  he  exclaimed. 

She  came  toward  him,  her  breath  hurried,  her  cheek 
pale.  Tom  Felder's  face  was  at  her  shoulder.  "I  have 
a  little  matter  to  attend  to  in  the  office,"  he  said,  nod 
ding  to  Harry.  "I  shall  wait  for  you  there,  Miss 
Holme." 

She  thanked  him  with  a  grateful  look,  and  as  he 
vanished,  Harry  took  her  hand  and  kissed  it.  He  longed 
to  take  her  in  his  arms. 

"I  heard  of  it  only  at  noon,"  she  began,  her  voice  un 
certain.  "I  was  afraid  they  would  not  let  me  see  you, 
so  I  went  to  Mr.  Felder.  They  were  saying  on  the 
street  that  he  had  offered  to  defend  you." 

"I  had  not  been  here  an  hour  when  he  came,"  he  said. 

"I  know  you  have  no  money,"  she  went  on ;  "I  know 
305 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

what  you  did  with,  the  gold  you  found.  And  I  have 
begged  him  to  let  me  pay  for  any  other  counsel  he  will 
name.  I  have  not  told  him — what  I  am  to  you,  but  I 
have  told  him  that  I  am  far  from  poor,  and  that  noth 
ing  counts  beside  your  life.  He  says  you  have  for 
bidden  him  to  do  this — forbidden  him  to  allow  any 
help  from  any  one.  Hugh,  Hugh!  Why  do  you  do 
this?  The  money  should  be  yours,  not  mine,  for  it 
was  your  father's !  It  is  yours,  for  I  am  your  wife  I" 

He  kissed  her  hand  again  without  answering. 

"Haven't  I  a  right  now  to  be  at  your  side?  Mayn't 
I  tell  them?" 

He  shook  his  head.    "Not  yet,  Jessica." 

"I  must  obey  you,"  she  said  with  a  wan  smile,  "yet  I 
would  share  your  shame  as  proudly  as  your  glory !  You 
are  thinking  me  weak  and  despicable,  perhaps,  because 
I  wanted  you  to  go  away.  But  women  are  not  men,  and 
I — I  love  you  so,  Hugh!" 

"I  think  you  are  all  that  is  brave  and  good,"  he  pro 
tested. 

"I  want  you  to  believe,"  she  went  on,  "that  I  knew 
you  had  done  no  murder.  If  an  angel  from  Heaven 
had  come  to  declare  it,  I  would  not  have  believed  it.  I 
only  want  now  to  understand." 

"What  do  you  not  understand  ?"  he  asked  gently. 
306 


THE    HAND    AT    THE    DOOR 

She  half  turned  toward  the  door,,  as  she  said,  in  a 
lower  key:  "Last  night  I  was  overwrought.  I  had  no 
time  to  reason,  or  even  to  be  glad  that  you  had  recov 
ered  your  memory.  I  thought  only  of  your  escaping 
somewhere — where  you  would  be  safe,  and  where  I  could 
follow.  But  after  you  had  gone,  many  things  came 
back  to  me  that  seemed  strange — something  curious  in 
your  manner.  You  had  not  seemed  wholly  surprised 
when  I  told  you  you  were  accused.  Why  did  you  shut 
the  cabin  door,  and  speak  so  low?  Was  there  any  one 
else  there  when  I  came?" 

He  averted  his  face,  but  he  did  not  answer.  She  was 
treading  on  near  ground. 

"My  horse  came  back  this  afternoon,"  she  continued. 
"He  had  been  ridden  hard  in  the  night  and  his  flanks 
were  cut  cruelly  with  a  whip.  You  did  not  use  him, 
but  some  one  did." 

She  waited  a  moment,  still  he  made  no  reply. 

"I  want  to  ask  you,"  she  said  abruptly,  "do  you  know 
who  killed  Doctor  Moreau  ?" 

His  blood  chilled  at  the  question.  He  looked  down 
at  her  speechless.  "You  must  let  me  speak,''  she  said. 
"You  won't  answer  that.  Then  you  do  know  who  really 
did  it.  Oh,  I  have  thought  so  much  since  last  night ! 
For  some  reason  you  are  shielding  him.  Was  it  the 

307 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

man  who  was  in  the  cabin — who  rode  my  horse  ?  If  he 
is  guilty,  why  do  you  help  him  off,  and  so  make  yourself 
partly  guilty?" 

He  looked  down  at  her  and  put  a  finger  on  her  lips. 
"Do  you  remember  what  you  told  me  last  night — that 
you  would  believe  what  I  did  was  for  the  best  ?" 

"But  I  thought  then  you  were  going  away!  How 
can  I  believe  it  now  ?  Why,  they  hang  men  who  murder, 
and  it  is  you  who  are  accused !  If  you  protect  the  real 
murderer,  you  will  have  to  stand  in  his  place.  The 
whole  town  believes  you  are  guilty — I  see  it  in  all  their 
faces.  They  are  sorry,  many  of  them,  for  they  don't 
hate  you  as  they  did,  but  they  think  you  did  it.  Even 
Mr.  Felder,  though  I  have  told  him  what  I  suspect,  and 
though  he  is  working  now  to  defend  you !" 

"Jessica,"  he  urged,  "you  must  trust  me  and  have 
faith  in  me.  I  know  it  is  hard,  but  I  can't  explain  to 
you !  I  can't  tell  you — yet — why  I  do  as  I  am  doing,  but 
you  must  believe  that  I  am  right." 

She  was  puzzled  and  confused.  When  she  had  put 
this  and  that  together,  guided  by  her  intuition,  the  con 
clusion  that  he  knew  the  guilty  one  had  brought  a  huge 
relief.  Now  this  fell  into  disarray.  She  felt  beneath 
his  manner  a  kind  of  appeal,  a  deprecation,  almost  a 
hidden  pity  for  her — as  though  the  danger  were  hers, 

308 


THE    HAND    AT    THE    DOOR 

not  his,,  and  she  the  one  caught  in  this  catastrophe.  She 
looked  at  him  pale  and  distraught. 

"You  speak  as  if  you  were  sorry  for  me,"  she  said, 
"and  not  for  yourself.  Is  it  because  you  know  you  are 
not  in  real  danger — that  you  know  the  truth  must  come 
out,,  only  you  can't  tell  it  yourself,  or  tell  me  either? 
Is  that  it?" 

A  wave  of  feeling  passed  over  Harry,  of  hopeless  long 
ing.  Whichever  way  the  issue  turned  there  was  anguish 
for  her — for  she  loved  him.  If  he  were  acquitted,  she 
must  learn  that  past  love  between  them  had  been  illicit, 
that  present  love  was  shame,  and  future  love  an  im 
possibility.  Convicted,  there  must  be  added  to  this  the 
bitter  knowledge  that  her  husband  in  very  truth  was  a 
murderer,  doomed  to  lurk  in  hiding  so  long  as  he  might 
live.  Yet  not  to  reassure  her  now  was  cruelty. 

"It  is  not  that,  Jessica,"  he  said  gravely;  "yet  you 
must  not  fear  for  me — for  my  life.  Try  to  believe  me 
when  I  say  that  some  time  you  will  understand  and 
know  that  I  did  only  what  I  must." 

"Will  that  be  soon?"  she  asked. 

"I  think  it  may  be  soon,"  he  answered. 

Her  face  lighted.  The  puzzle  and  dread  lifted.  "Oh, 
then,"  she  said — "oh,  then,  I  shall  not  be  afraid.  I  can 
not  share  your  thoughts,  nor  your  secret,  and  I  must 

309 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

rebel  at  that.  You  mustn't  blame  me — I  wouldn't  be  a 
woman  if  I  did  not— but  I  love  you  more  than  all  the 
world,  and  I  shall  believe  that  you  know  best.  Hugh," 
sLo  added  softly,  "do  you  know  that— you  haven't  kissed 

me?" 

Before  her  upturned,  pleading  eyes  and  trembling 
lips,  the  iron  of  his  purpose  bent  to  the  man  in  him, 
and  he  took  her  into  his  arms. 


310 


CHAPTER    XXXVII 

THE  PENITENT  THIEF 

A  frosty  gloom  was  over  the  city  of  Aniston,  moon 
and  stars  hidden  by  a  cloudy  sky,  from  which  a  light 
snow — the  first  of  the  season — was  sifting  down.  The 
streets  were  asleep;  only  occasional  belated  pedestrians 
were  to  be  seen  in  the  chilly  air.  These  saw  a  man,  his 
face  muffled  from  the  snowflakes,  pass  hurriedly  toward 
the  fountained  square,  from  whose  steeple  two  o'clock 
was  just  striking.  The  wayfarer  skirted  the  square, 
keeping  in  cover  of  the  buildings  as  though  avoiding 
chance  observation,  till  he  stood  on  the  pavement  of  a 
Gothic  chapel  fronting  the  open  space. 

Here  he  paused  and  glanced  furtively  about  him.  He 
could  see  the  entrance  to  the  minister's  study,  at  which 
he  had  so  often  knocked  and  the  great  rose-window  of 
the  audience-room  where  he  had  once  gamed  with  Harry 
Sanderson.  This  was  the  building  he  must  enter  like  a 
thief. 

On  the  night  of  his  flight  from  Smoky  Mountain, 
Hugh  had  ridden  hard  till  dawn,  abandoning  the  horse 

311 


SATAN  SANDERSON: 

to  find  its  way  back  as  best  it  might.  Hidden  in  a  snug 
retreat,  he  had  slept  through  the  next  day,  to  recom 
mence  his  journeying  at  nightfall.  He  had  thus  been 
obliged  to  make  haste  slowly  and  had  lost  much  valuable 
time.  For  two  days  after  his  arrival,  he  had  hung  about 
outside  the  town  in  a  fever  of  impatience;  for  though 
he  had  readily  ascertained  that  the  premises  were  unoc 
cupied,  the  first  night  he  had  been  frightened  away  by 
the  too  zealous  scrutiny  of  a  policeman,  and  on  the  next 
he  had  been  unable  to  force  the  door.  That  morning  he 
had  secured  a  skeleton-key,  and  now  the  weather  was 
propitious  for  his  purpose. 

After  a  moment's  reconnoitering,  he  scaled  the  frost- 
fretted  iron  palings  and  gained  the  shelter  of  the  porch. 
He  tried  the  key  anxiously ;  to  his  relief  it  fitted.  An 
other  minute  and  he  stood  in  the  study,  {he  door  locked 
behind  him,  his  veins  beating  with  excitement. 

He  felt  along  the  wall,  drawing  his  hand  back  sharply 
as  it  encountered  the  electric  switch.  He  struck  a  wax 
fusee  and  by  its  feeble  ray  gazed  about  him.  The  room 
looked  as  it  had  always  looked,  with  Harry's  books  on 
the  shelves,  and  his  heavy  walking-stick  in  the  corner, 
and  there  against  the  wall  stood  the  substantial  iron 
safe  that  held  his  own  ransom.  Crouching  down  before 
it,  he  took  from  his  pocket  the  paper  upon  which  was 

312 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF 

written  the  combination;  ten  to  the  right,  five  to  the 
left,  twice  nineteen  to  the  right — 

The  match  scorched  his  fingers,  and  he  lighted  an 
other  and  began  to  turn  the  knob.  The  lock  bore  both 
figures  and  letters  in  concentric  rings,  and  he  saw  that 
the  seven  figures  Harry  had  written  formed  a  word. 
Hugh  dropped  the  match  with  a  smothered  exclamation, 
for  the  word  was  Jessica!  So  Harry  really  had  loved 
her  in  the  old  days !  Had  he  profited  by  that  wedding- 
day  expulsion  to  make  love  to  her  himself  ?  Yet  on  the 
night  of  the  game  with  Harry  in  the  chapel  the  house 
in  the  aspens  had  been  closed  and  dark.  How  had  she 
come  to  be  in  Smoky  Mountain?  His  father  was  dead 
— so  Harry  had  said.  If  so,  the  money  had  gone  to  her, 
no  doubt.  Well,  at  any  rate,  she  had  never  been  any 
thing  to  him  and  he  was  no  dog-in-the-manger.  What 
he  needed  now  was  the  thousand  dollars,  and  here  it 
was.  He  swung  the  massive  door  wide  and  took  out  the 
canvas  bag.  With  this  and  the  ruby  ring — it  must  easily 
be  worth  as  much  again — he  could  put  the  round  world 
between  himself  and  capture. 

He  closed  the  safe,  and  with  the  bag  of  coin  in  his 
hand,  groped  his  way  to  the  door  of  the  chapel.  It  was 
less  dark  there,  for  the  snow  was  making  a  white  night 
outside,  and  the  stained  glass  cast  a  wan  glimmer  across 

313 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

the  aisles.  He  could  almost  see  himself  and  Harry  San 
derson  sitting  in  the  candle-light  at  the  communion 
table  inside  the  altar-rail,  almost  hear  the  musical  chink 
of  the  gold!  His  hand  wandered  to  his  pocket,  where 
lay  the  one  wax  wafer  he  had  kept  as  a  pocket-piece.  At 
that  altar  he  had  sworn  to  pay  a  day  of  clean  living  for 
each  of  the  counters  he  had  lost.  He  had  not  kept  that 
oath,  and  now  vengeance  was  near  to  overtaking  him. 
He  shuddered.  He  had  turned  over  a  new  leaf  this  time 
in  earnest,  and  he  would  make  up  for  the  broken  vow ! 

But  meanwhile  he  greatly  needed  sleep,  and  to-night 
in  the  open  that  was  out  of  the  question.  He  could  gain 
several  good  hours'  rest  where  he  was,  and  still  get  away 
before  daybreak.  He  drew  together  the  altar-cushions 
and  lay  down,  the  canvas  bag  beside  him,  but  he  was 
cold,  and  at  length  he  rose  and  went  into  the  vestry  for 
a  surplice.  He  wrapped  this  about  him,  and,  lighting  a 
cigarette,  lay  down  again.  He  was  very  tired,  but  his 
limbs  twitched  from  nervousness.  He  lighted  one  cigar 
ette  after  another,  but  sleep  was  coy.  He  tried  to  woo  it 
with  nonsense  rhymes,  but  the  lines  ran  together.  He 
tried  the  remedy  of  his  restless,  precocious  childhood — 
the  counting  of  innumerable  sheep  as  they  leaped  the 
hurdle  one  by  one ;  but  now  all  of  the  sheep  were  black. 
There  came  before  his  eyes,  uncalled,  the  portrait  of  his 

314 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF 

dead  mother,  that  had  always  hung  at  home  in  the 
wainscoted  library.  In  her  memory  his  father  had  built 
this  very  chapel.  He  wondered  again  whether  she  had 
looked  like  the  picture. 

A  softer  feeling  came  to  him.  She  would  be  sorry  if 
she  could  know  his  plight.  Perhaps  if  she  had  lived  his 
life  might  have  been  different.  Slow  tears  stole  down 
his  cheeks — not  now  of  affected  sentimentalism,  or  of 
hysterical  self-pity,  but  warmer  drops  from  some  deeper 
well  that  had  not  overflowed  since  he  was  a  little  boy. 
If  he  had  the  chance  he  would  live  from  now  on  so  that 
if  she  were  alive  she  need  not  be  ashamed  !  The  promise 
he  made  himself  at  that  moment  was  an  honester  one 
than  all  his  selfish  years  had  known,  for  it  sprang  not 
from  dread,  but  from  the  better  feeling  that  his  matur 
ity  had  trampled  and  denied.  He  felt  a  kind  of  peace — 
the  first  real  peace  he  had  known  since  his  school-days — 
and  with  it  drowsiness  came  at  last.  With  the  drops 
wet  on  his  cheek,  forgetfulness  found  him.  In  a  few 
minutes  he  was  sleeping  heavily. 

The  last  half-consumed  cigarette  dropped  from  his 
relaxing  fingers  to  the  cushion,  where  it  made  a  smolder 
ing  nest  of  fire.  A  tiny  tongue  of  flame  caught  the 
edge  of  a  wall-hanging,  ran  up  to  the  dry  oaken  rafters 
and  speedily  ignited  them.  In  fifteen  minutes  the  inte- 

315 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

rior  of  the  chapel  was  a  mass  of  flame,  and  Hugh  woke 
gasping  and  bewildered. 

With  a  cry  of  alarm  he  sprang  to  his  feet,  seized  the 
bag  of  coin  and  ran  to  the  door  of  the  study.  In  his 
haste  he  stumbled  against  it,  and  the  dead-lock  snapped 
to.  He  was  a  prisoner  now,  for  he  had  left  the  skeleton- 
key  in  the  inside  of  the  outer  door.  Clutching  his 
treasure,  he  ran  to  the  main  entrance ;  it  was  fast.  He 
tried  the  smaller  windows;  iron  bars  were  set  across 
them.  He  made  shift  to  wrap  the  surplice  about  his 
mouth,  against  the  stifling  smoke  and  fiery  vapors.  The 
bag  dropped  from  his  hand  and  the  gold  rolled  about 
the  floor.  He  stooped  and  clutched  a  handful  of  the 
coins  and  crammed  them  into  his  pocket.  Was  he  to 
die  after  all  like  this,  caught  like  a  rat  in  a  trap  ?  In 
his  panic  of  terror  he  forgot  all  necessity  of  conceal 
ment;  he  longed  for  nothing  so  much  as  discovery  by 
those  whose  cries  he  now  heard  filling  the  waking  street. 
Many  voices  were  swelling  the  clamor  there.  Bells  were 
pealing  a  terror-tongued  alarm,  but  those  on  the  spot 
saw  that  the  structure  was  doomed.  Hugh  screamed 
desperately,  but  the  roar  of  the  flames  overhead  and 
the  angry  crackling  of  the  woodwork  drowned  all  else. 
The  roof  timbers  were  snapping,  the  muffling  surplice 
was  scorching,  a  thousand  luminous  points  about  him 

316 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF 

were  bursting  into  fire  in  the  sickening  heat.  He 
pounded  with  all  his  might  upon  the  door  panels,  but 
in  vain.  Who  outside  could  have  imagined  that  a 
human  being  was  pent  within  that  fiery  furnace  ? 

Uttering  a  hoarse  cry,  with  the  strength  of  despair, 
Hugh  wrenched  a  pew  from  the  floor  and  made  of  it  a 
ladder  to  reach  the  rose-window.  Mounting  this,  he 
beat  frantically  with  his  fist  upon  the  painted  glass. 
The  crystal  shivered  beneath  the  blows,  and  clinging  to 
the  iron  supports,  his  beard  burnt  to  the  skin,  he  set 
his  face  to  the  aperture  and  drew  a  gulping  breath  of 
the  sweet,  cold  air.  In  his  agony,  with  that  fiery  hell 
opening  beneath  him,  he  could  see  the  massed  people 
watching  from  the  safety  that  was  so  near. 

"Look!  Look!"  The  sudden  cry  went  up,  and  a 
thrill  of  awe  ran  through  the  crowd.  The  glass  Hugh 
had  shattered  had  formed  the  face  of  the  Penitent 
Thief  in  the  window-design,  and  his  outstretched  arms 
fitted  those  of  the  figure.  It  was  as  though  by  some 
ghastly  miracle  the  painted  features  had  suddenly 
sprung  into  life,  the  haggard  eyes  opened  in  appeal. 
The  watchers  gasped  in  amazement. 

The  flame  was  upon  him  now.  He  was  going  to  his 
last  account — with  no  time  to  alter  the  record.  But  had 
not  his  sleeping  vow  been  one  of  reformation  ?  He  tried 

317 


SATAN    SANDERSON* 

to  shriek  this  to  the  deaf  heavens,  but  all  the  spellbound 
watchers  heard  was  the  cry :  "Lord,  Lord,  remember — " 
And  this  articulate  prayer  from  the  crucified  malefactor 
filled  them  with  a  superstitious  horror.  In  the  crowd 
more  than  one  covered  his  face  with  his  hands. 

All  at  once  there  came  a  shout  of  warning.  The  wall 
opened  outward,  tottered  and  fell. 

Then  it  was  that  they  saw  the  writhing  figure,  tangled 
in  the  twisted  lead  bars  of  the  wrecked  rose-window. 
Shielding  their  faces  from  the  unendurable  heat,  they 
reached  and  bore  it  to  safety,  laying  it  on  the  crisp, 
snowy  grass,  and  tearing  off  the  singed  and  smoking 
ministerial  robes. 

Judge  Conwell  was  one  of  these.  In  the  flaring  con 
fusion  he  leaned  over  the  figure — the  gleam  of  the  ruby 
ring  on  the  finger  caught  his  eye.  He  bent  forward  to 
look  into  the  drawn  and  distorted  face. 

"Good  God !"  he  said.    "If  s  Harry  Sanderson !" 


318 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

A   DAY   FOR  THE  STATE 

In  communities  such  as  Smoky  Mountain  the  law 
moves  with  fateful  rapidity.  Harry  had  been  formally 
arraigned  the  second  morning  after  his  self-surrender 
and  had  pleaded  not  guilty.  The  Grand  Jury  was  in 
session — indeed,,  had  about  finished  its  labors — and  there 
had  been  no  reason  for  delay.  All  necessary  witnesses 
for  the  state  were  on  the  ground,  and  Felder  for  his 
part  had  no  others  to  summon.  So  that  when  Doctor 
Brent,  one  keen  forenoon,  swung  himself  off  a  Pullman 
at  the  station,  returning  from  his  ten  days'  absence,  he 
found  the  town  thrilling  with  the  excitement  of  the 
first  day  of  the  trial.  Before  he  left  the  station,  he  had 
learned  of  Prendergast's  death  and  accusation  and  knew 
that  Tom  Felder  had  come  to  the  prisoner's  defense. 

Doctor  Brent  had  taken  no  stock  in  the  young  law 
yer's  view  of  Hugh  Stires.  The  incident  that  they  had 
witnessed  on  the  mountain  road — it  had  troubled  him 
during  his  trip — had  been  to  him  only  another  chapter 
in  the  hackneyed  tragedy  of  romantic  womanhood  flat- 

319 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

tered  by  a  rascal.  He  was  inclined  now  to  lay  the  cham 
pionship  as  much  to  interest  in  Jessica  as  in  the  man 
who  had  won  her  love. 

He  walked  thoughtfully  to  his  friend's  deserted  office, 
and  leaving  his  suit-case  there,  betook  himself  to  the 
filled  court-room,  where  Smoky  Mountain  had  gathered 
to  watch  Felder's  fight  for  the  life  and  liberty  of  the 
man  who  for  days  past  had  been  the  center  of  interest. 
The  court  had  opened  two  hours  before  and  half  the 
jury  had  been  selected.  He  found  a  seat  with  some 
difficulty,  and  thereafter  his  attention  was  given  first  to 
the  bench  where  the  prisoner  sat,  and  second  to  a  chair 
close  to  the  railing  beside  Mrs.  Halloran's,  where  a  girl's 
face  glimmered  palely  under  a  light  veil. 

Toward  this  chair  the  hundreds  of  eyes  in  the  room 
that  morning  had  often  turned.  Since  the  day  Mrs. 
Halloran  had  surprised  Jessica  at  work  upon  the  rock 
statue,  she  had  kept  her  counsel,  but  as  the  physician 
had  conjectured,  the  monument  had  been  stumbled  upon 
and  had  drawn  curious  visitors.  Thus  the  name  on  the 
grave  had  become  common  property  and  the  coincidence 
had  been  chattered  of.  That  Jessica  had  chiselled  the 
statue  was  not  doubted — she  had  bought  the  tools  in 
town,  and  old  Paddy  Wise,  the  blacksmith,  had  sharp 
ened  them  for  her.  The  story  Prendergast  had  told  in 

320 


A    DAY    FOR    THE    STATE 

the  general  store,  too,  had  not  been  forgotten,  and  the 
aid  she  had  given  the  fever-stricken  man  had  acquired 
a  new  significance  in  face  of  the  knowledge  that  she 
had  more  than  once  been  admitted  to  the  jail  with 
Felder.  No  one  in  Smoky  Mountain  would  have  ven 
tured  to  "pump"  the  lawyer,  and  the  town  had  been  too 
mindful  of  its  manners  to  catechize  her,  but  it  had 
buzzed  with  theories.  From  the  moment  of  the  opening 
of  the  trial  she  had  divided  interest  with  the  prisoner. 
The  first  appearance  of  the  latter,  between  two  depu 
ties,  had  caused  a  murmur  of  surprise.  In  the  weeks  of 
wholesome  toil  and  mountain  air,  the  sallow,  haggard 
look  that  Harry  had  brought  to  the  town  had  gradually 
faded;  his  step  had  grown  more  elastic,  his  cheek  rud 
dier,  his  eye  a  clearer  blue.  The  scar  on  his  temple  had 
become  less  noticeable.  Day  by  day,  he  had  been  grow 
ing  back  to  the  old  look.  The  beard  and  mustache  now 
were  gone;  the  face  they  saw  was  smooth-shaven,  calm, 
alien  and  absorbed.  He  had  bowed  slightly  to  the  judge, 
shaken  hands  gravely  with  Felder  and  sat  down  with  a 
quick,  flashing  smile  at  the  quivering  face  behind  the 
veil.  He  had  seemed  of  all  there  the  one  who  had  least 
personal  concern  in  the  deliberations  that  were  forward. 
Yet  beneath  that  mask  of  calmness  Harry's  every  nerve 
was  stretched,  every  sense  restive. 

321 


SATAX   SANDERSON 

In  the  interviews  he  had  had  with  his  client,  Felder 
had  been  puzzled  and  nonplussed.  To  tell  the  truth, 
when  he  had  first  come  to  his  defense  it  had  been  not 
with  a  conviction  of  his  innocence,  but  with  a  belief  in 
the  present  altered  character  that  made  the  law's  penalty 
seem  excessive  and  supererogatory ;  in  fine,  that  what 
ever  he  might  have  deserved  when  he  did  it — assuming 
that  he  did  it — he  did  not  deserve  hanging  now.  But 
the  man's  manner  had  made  him  lean  more  and  more 
upon  an  assumption  of  actual  innocence.  In  the  end, 
while  discarding  Jessica's  reasoning,  he  had  accepted 
her  conclusion.  The  man  was  certainly  guiltless.  Since 
this  time,  he  had  felt  his  position  keenly.  It 
had  been  one  thing  to  do  the  very  best  possible  for  a 
presumptively  guilty  man — to  get  him  off  against  the 
evidence  if  he  could;  it  was  a  vastly  different  thing  to 
defend  one  whom  he  believed  actually  guiltless  against 
damning  circumstance. 

With  the  filling  of  the  jury-box  the  court  adjourned 
for  an  hour  and  Doctor  Brent  saw  the  two  women's  fig 
ures  disappear  with  Felder  into  a  side  room,  while  the 
prisoner  was  taken  in  charge  by  the  deputies.  The  doc 
tor  lunched  hastily  at  the  Mountain  Valley  House,  irri 
tated  out  of  his  usual  urbanity  by  the  chatter  of  the 
crowded  dining-room,  realizing  then  how  busy  gossip 

323 


A   DAY    FOE   THE    STATE 

had  been  with  Jessica's  name.  He  walked  back  to  the 
court-room  moodily  smoking. 

The  afternoon  session  commenced  with  a  concise 
opening  by  the  district  attorney;  Felder's  reply  was  as 
brief,  and  the  real  business  of  the  day  began  with  the 
witnesses  for  the  state. 

Circumstantially  speaking,  the  evidence  was  flawless. 
Doctor  Moreau,  while  little  known  and  less  liked,  had 
figured  in  the  town  as  a  promoter  and  an  inventor  of 
"slick"  stock  schemes.  He  had  come  there  with  Hugh 
Stires,  from  Sacramento,  where  they  had  had  a  business 
partnership — of  short  duration.  There  had  been  bad 
blood  between  them  there,  as  the  latter  had  once  ad 
mitted.  The  prisoner  had  preempted  the  claim  on 
Smoky  Mountain  in  an  abortive  "boom"  which  Moreau 
had  engineered,  and  over  whose  proceeds  the  pair,  it 
was  believed,  had  fallen  out.  He  had  then,  to  use  the 
attorney's  phrase,  "swapped  the  devil  for  the  witch," 
and  had  taken  up  with  Prendergast,  who  by  the  manner 
of  his  taking  off  had  finally  justified  a  jail  record  in 
another  state.  Soon  after  this  break  Hugh  Stires  had 
vanished.  On  the  day  following  his  last  appearance  in 
the  town,  the  body  of  Moreau  had  been  found  on  the 
Little  Paymaster  Claim,  shot  by  a  cowardly  bullet 
through  the  back-^-a  fact  which  precluded  the  possibility 

323 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

that  the  deed  had  been  done  in  self-defense.  There  was 
evidence  that  he  had  died  a  painful  and  lingering  death. 
Suspicion  had  naturally  pointed  to  the  vanished  man, 
and  this  suspicion  had  grown  until,  after  some  months' 
absence,  he  had  returned,  alleging  that  he  had  lost  his 
memory  of  the  past,  to  resume  his  life  in  the  cabin  on 
the  mountain  and  his  partnership  with  the  thief  Pren- 
dergast.  The  two  had  finally  quarrelled  and  Prender- 
gast  had  taken  up  his  abode  in  the  town.  Subsequent 
to  this,  the  latter  had  been  heard  to  make  dark  insinu 
ations,  unnoted  at  the  time  but  since  grown  significant, 
hinting  at  criminal  knowledge  of  the  prisoner.  The 
close  of  this  chapter  had  been  Prendergast's  dismal  end 
in  the  gulch,  when  he  had  produced  the  scrap  of  paper 
which  was  the  crux  of  the  case.  He  declared  he  had 
found  Moreau  dying;  that  the  latter  had  traced  with 
his  own  hand  the  accusation  which  fastened  the  crime 
upon  Hugh  Stires.  Specimens  of  Moreau's  handwriting 
were  not  lacking  and  seemed  to  prove  beyond  question 
its  .authenticity. 

Such  were  the  links  of  the  coil  which  wound,  with 
each  witness,  closer  and  closer — none  knew  better  how 
closely  than  Harry  Sanderson  himself.  As  witness  suc 
ceeded  witness,  his  heart  sank.  Jessica's  burden  was 
not  to  be  lightened;  Hugh  must  remain  a  Cain,  a 

324 


*.  A   DAY   FOE   THE    STATE 

dweller  in  the  dark  places  of  the  earth.     In  the  larger 
part,  his  own  sacrifice  was  to  fail ! 

In  his  cross-examination  Felder  had  fought  gamely 
to  lighten  the  weight  of  the  evidence:  The  prisoner's 
old  associations  with  Morean  had  been  amicable,  else 
they  would  not  have  come  to  Smoky  Mountain  together ; 
if  he  had  been  disliked  and  avoided,  the  circumstance 
was  referable  rather  to  his  companionships  than  to  his 
own  actions;  whatever  the  pervasive  contempt,  there 
had  been  nothing  criminal  on  the  books  against  him. 
The  lawyer's  questions  touched  the  baleful  whisper  that 
had  become  allegation  and  indictment,  a  prejudged  con 
viction  of  guilt.  They  made  it  clear  that  the  current 
belief  had  been  the  fruit  of  antipathy  and  bias ;  that  it 
had  been  no  question  of  evidence ;  so  far  as  that  went, 
he,  Felder,  might  have  done  the  deed,  or  Prendergast, 
or  any  one  there.  But  Smoky  Mountain  would  have 
said,  as  it  did  say,  "It  was  Hugh  Stires  !"  He  compelled 
the  jury  to  recognize  that  but  one  bit  of  actual  evidence 
had  been  offered — there  had  been  no  eye-witness,  no 
telltale  incident.  All  rested  upon  a  single  scrap  of 
paper,  a  fragment  of  handwriting  in  no  way  difficult  of 
imitation,  and  this  in  turn  upon  the  allegation  of  a 
thief,  struck  down  in  an  act  of  crime,  whose  word  in  an 
ordinary  case  of  fact  would  not  be  worth  a  farthing. 

325 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

No  motive  had  been  alleged  for  the  killing  of  Moreau 
by  the  prisoner,  but  Prendergast  had  had  motive  enough 
in  his  accusation.  It  had  been  open  knowledge  that  he 
hated  Hugh  Stires,  and  his  own  character  made  it  evi 
dent  that  he  would  not  have  scrupled  to  fasten  a  mur 
der  upon  him. 

But  as  Felder  studied  the  twelve  grave  faces  in  the 
jury-box,  who  in  the  last  analysis  were  all  that  counted, 
he  shared  his  client's  hopelessness.  Judgment  and  ex 
perience  told  him  how  futile  were  all  theories  in  the 
face  of  that  inarticulate  but  damning  witness  that  Pren 
dergast  had  left  behind  him.  So  the  afternoon  dragged 
through,  a  day  for  the  State. 

Sunset  came  early  at  that  season.  Dark  fell  and  the 
electric  bulbs  made  their  mimic  day,  but  no  one  left  the 
room.  The  outcome  seemed  a  foregone  conclusion.  The 
jurymen  no  longer  gazed  at  the  prisoner,  and  when  they 
looked  at  one  another,  it  was  with  grim  understanding. 
As  the  last  witness  for  the  State  stepped  down  and  the 
prosecutor  rested,  the  judge  glanced  at  the  clock. 

"There  is  a  bare  half-hour,"  he  said  tentatively.  "Per 
haps  the  defense  would  prefer  not  to  open  testimony  till 
to-morrow." 

Felder  had  risen.  He  saw  his  opportunity — to  bring 
out  sharply  a  contrasting  point  in  the  prisoner's  favor, 

326 


A    DAY    FOR    THE    STATE 

the  one  circumstance,  considered  apart,  pointing  toward 
innocence  rather  than  guilt — to  leave  this  for  the  jury 
to  take  with  them,  to  off-set  by  its  effect  the  weight  of 
the  evidence  that  had  been  given. 

"I  will  proceed,  if  your  Honor  pleases/'  he  said,  and 
amid  a  rustle  of  surprise  and  interest  called  Jessica  to 
the  stand. 

As  she  went  forward  to  the  witness  chair,  she  put 
back  the  shielding  veil,  and  her  face,  pale  as  bramble- 
bloom  under  her  red-bronze  hair,  made  an  appealing 
picture.  A  cluster  of  white  carnations  was  pinned  to 
her  coat  and  as  she  passed  Harry  she  bent  and  laid  one 
in  his  hand.  The  slight  act,  not  lost  upon  the  specta 
tors,  called  forth  a  sibilant  flutter  of  sympathy.  For  it 
wore  no  touch  of  designed  effect;  its  impulse  was  as 
pure  and  unmistakable  as  its  meaning. 

Harry  had  started  uncontrollably  as  she  rose,  for  he 
had  had  no  inkling  of  the  lawyer's  intention,  and  a  flush 
darkened  his  cheek  at  the  cool  touch  of  the  flower.  But 
this  faded  to  a  settled  pallor,  as  under  Felder's  grave 
questioning  she  told  in  a  voice  as  clear  as  a  child's,  yet 
with  a  woman's  emotion  struggling  through  it,  the  story 
of  her  disregarded  warning.  While  she  spoke  pain  and 
shame  travelled  through  his  every  vein,  for — though 
technically  she  had  not  brought  herself  into  the  perplex- 

327 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

ing  purview  of  the  law — she  was  laying  bare  the  secret 
of  her  own  heart,  which  now  he  would  have  covered  at 
any  cost. 

"That  is  all,  your  Honor,"  said  Felder,  when  Jessica 
had  finished  her  story. 

"Do  you  wish  to  cross-examine?"  asked  the  judge 
perfunctorily. 

The  prosecutor  looked  at  her  an  instant.  He  saw  the 
faintness  in  her  eyes,  the  twitching  of  the  gloved  hand 
on  the  rail.  "By  no  means,"  he  said  courteously,  and 
turned  to  his  papers. 

At  the  same  moment,  as  Jessica  stepped  into  the  open 
aisle,  the  ironic  chance  which  so  often  relieves  the  strain 
of  the  tragic  by  a  breath  of  the  banal,  treated  the  spell 
bound  audience  to  a  novel  sensation.  Every  electric  light 
suddenly  went  out,  and  darkness  swooped  upon  the  town 
and  the  court-room.  A  second's  carelessness  at  the 
power-house  a  half-mile  away — the  dropping  of  a  bit  of 
waste  into  a  cog-wheel — and  the  larger  mechanism  that 
governed  the  issues  of  life  and  death  was  thrown  into 
instant  confusion.  Hubbub  arose — people  stood  up  in 
their  places. 

The  judge's  gavel  pounded  viciously  and  his  sten 
torian  voice  bellowed  for  order. 

"Keep  your  seats,  everybody !"  he  commanded.  "Mr. 
328 


A   DAY   FO&   THE    STATE 

Clerk,  get  some  candles.  This  court  is  not  yet  ad 
journed  I" 

To  Jessica  the  sudden  blankness  came  with  a  nervous 
shock.  Since  that  first  meeting  in  the  jail  she  had 
pinned  her  faith  on  the  reassurance  that  had  been  given 
her.  She  had  fought  down  doubt  and  questioning  and 
leaned  hard  upon  her  trust.  But  in  her  overwrought 
condition,  as  the  end  drew  near  with  no  solution  of  the 
enigma,  this  faith  sometimes  faltered.  The  mystery 
was  so  impenetrable,  the  peril  so  imminent!  To-day, 
in  the  court-room,  her  subtle  sense  had  told  her  that, 
belief  and  conviction  aside,  a  pronounced  feeling  of 
sympathy  existed  for  the  man  she  loved.  She  had  not 
needed  Mrs.  Halloran's  comforting  assurances  on  this 
score,  for  the  atmosphere  was  surcharged  with  it.  She 
had  felt  it  when  she  laid  the  carnation  in  his  hand,  and 
even  more  unmistakably  while  she  had  given  her  testi 
mony.  She  had  realized  the  value  of  that  one  unvar 
nished  fact,  introduced  so  effectively — that  he  had  had 
time  to  get  away,  and  instead  had  chosen  to  surrender 
himself. 

Yet  even  as  she  thrilled  to  the  responsive  current, 
Jessica  had  not  been  deceived.  She  felt  the  pitiful 
impotence  of  mere  sympathy  against  the  apparent 
weight  of  evidence  that  had  frightened  her.  Surely, 

329 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

surely,  if  he  was  to  save  himself,  the  truth  must  come 
out  speedily !  But  the  end  of  it  all  was  in  sight  and  he 
had  not  spoken.  To-day  as  she  watched  his  face,  the 
thought  had  come  to  her  that  perhaps  his  reassurance 
had  been  given  only  to  comfort  her  and  spare  her 
anguish.  The  thought  had  come  again  and  again  to 
torture  her;  only  hy  a  great  effort  had  she  been  able  to 
give  her  testimony.  As  the  pall  of  darkness  fell  upon 
the  court-room,  it  brought  a  sense  of  premonition,  as 
though  the  incident  prefigured  the  gloomy  end.  She 
turned  sick,  and  stumbled  down  the  aisle,  feeling  that 
she  must  reach  the  outer  air. 

A  pushing  handful  opened  the  way  to  the  corridor, 
and  in  a  moment  more  she  was  in  the  starlit  out-of- 
doors,  fighting  down  her  faintness,  with  the  babble  of 
talk  behind  her  and  the  cool  breeze  on  her  cheek. 


330 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

THE  UNSUMMONED  WITNESS 

In  the  room  Jessica  had  left,  the  turmoil  was  simmer 
ing  down;  here  and  there  a  match  was  struck  and 
showed  a  circle  of  brightness.  The  glimmer  of  one  of 
them  lit  the  countenance  of  a  man  who  had  brushed  her 
sleeve  as  he  entered.  It  was  Hallelujah  Jones.  The 
evangelist  had  prolonged  his  stay  at  Smoky  Mountain, 
for  the  town,  thrilling  to  its  drama  of  crime  and  judg 
ment,  had  seemed  a  fruitful  vineyard.  He  had  no  local 
interest  in  the  trial  of  Hugh.  Stires,  and  had  not  at 
tended  its  session;  but  he  had  been  passing  the  place 
when  the  lights  went  out  and  in  curiosity  had  crowded 
into  the  confusion,  where  now  he  looked  about  him  with 
eager  interest. 

A  candle-flame  fluttered  now,  like  a  golden  butterfly, 
on  the  judge's  desk,  another  on  the  table  inside  the  bar. 
More  grew  along  the  walls  until  the  room  was  bathed  in 
tremulous  yellow  light.  It  touched  the  profile  of  the 
prisoner,  turned  now,  for  his  look  had  followed  Jessica 
and  was  fixed  questioningly  on  her  empty  seat.  In  the 

331 


SATAN   8ANDEBSON 

unseeing  darkness  Harry  had  held  the  white  carnation 
to  his  lips  before  he  drew  its  stem  through  his  lapel. 

The  street  preacher's  jaw  dropped  in  blank  astonish 
ment.,  for  what  he  saw  before  him  brought  irresistibly 
back  another  scene  that,  months  before,  had  bit  into  his 
mind.  The  judge's  high  desk  turned  instantly  to  a 
chapel  altar,  and  the  table  back  of  the  polished  railing  to 
a  communion  table.  The  minister  that  had  looked  across 
it  in  the  candle-light  had  worn  a  white  carnation  in  his 
buttonhole.  His  face — 

Hallelujah  Jones  started  forward  with  an  exclama 
tion.  A  thousand  times  his  zealot  imagination  had  pic 
tured  the  recreant  clergyman  he  had  unmasked  as  an 
outcast,  plunging  toward  the  lake  of  brimstone.  Here  it 
was  at  last  in  his  hand,  the  end  of  the  story!  The 
worst  of  criminals,  skulking  beneath  an  alias!  He 
sprang  up  the  aisle. 

"Wait !  wait !"  he  cried.  "I  have  evidence  to  give !" 
He  pointed  excitedly  toward  Harry.  "This  man  is  not 
what  you  think  !  He  is  not — " 

Forensic  thunder  loosed  itself  from  the  wrathful 
judge's  desk,  and  crashed  across  the  stupefied  room. 
His  gavel  thumped  upon  the  wood.  "How  dare  you,"  he 
vociferated,  "break  in  upon  the  deliberations  of  this 
court !  I  fine  you  twenty  dollars  for  contempt !" 

332 


THE    UNSUMMONED    WITNESS 

Felder  had  leaped  to  his  feet,  every  sense  on  the  qui 
vive.  Like  a  drowning  man  he  grasped  at  the  straw. 
What  could  this  man  know?  He  took  a  bill  from  his 
pocket  and  clapped  it  down  on  the  clerk's  desk. 

"I  beg  to  purge  him  of  contempt/'  he  said,  "and  call, 
him  as  a  witness." 

The  district  attorney  broke  in: 

"Your  Honor,,  I  think  I  am  within  my  rights  in  pro 
testing  against  this  unheard-of  proceeding.  The  man  is 
a  vagrant  of  unknown  character.  His  very  action  pro 
claims  him  mentally  unbalanced.  Beyond  all  question 
he  can  know  nothing  of  this  case." 

"I  have  not  my  learned  opponent's  gift  of  clairvoy 
ance,"  retorted  Felder  tartly.  "I  repeat  that  I  call  this 
man  as  a  witness." 

The  judge  pulled  his  whiskers  and  looked  at  the 
evangelist  in  severe  annoyance.  "Take  the  stand,"  he 
said  gruffly. 

Hallelujah  Jones  snatched  the  Bible  from  the  clerk's 
hands  and  kissed  it.  Knowledge  was  burning  his  tongue. 
The  jury  were  leaning  forward  in  their  seats. 

"Have  you  ever  seen  the  prisoner  before?"  asked 
Felder. 

"Yes." 

"When?" 

333 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"When  he  was  a  minister  of  the  gospel." 

Felder  stared.  The  judge  frowned.  The  jury  looked 
at  one  another  and  a  laugh  ran  round  the  hushed  room. 

The  merriment  kindled  the  evangelist's  distempered 
passion.  Sudden  anger  flamed  in  him.  He  leaned  for 
ward  and  shook  his  hand  vehemently  at  the  table  where 
Harry  sat,  his  face  as  colorless  as  the  flower  he  wore. 

"That  man's  name/'  he  blazed,  "is  not  Hugh  Stires ! 
It  is  a  cloak  he  has  chosen  to  cover  his  shame !  He  is 
the  Reverend  Henry  Sanderson  of  Aniston !" 


334 


CHAPTER  XL 
FATE'S  WAY 

Harry's  pulses  had  leaped  with  excitement  when  the 
street  preacher's  first  exclamation  startled  the  court 
room  ;  now  they  were  beating  as  though  they  must  burst. 
He  was  not  to  finish  the  losing  struggle.  The  decision 
was  to  be  taken  from  his  hands.  Fate  had  interfered. 
This  bigot  who  had  once  been  the  means  of  his  undoing, 
was  to  be  the  dens  ex  macliina.  Through  the  stir  about 
him  he  heard  the  crisp  voice  of  the  district  attorney : 

"I  ask  your  Honor's  permission,  before  this  extraor 
dinary  witness  is  examined  further,"  he  said  caustically, 
"to  read  an  item  printed  here  which  has  a  bearing  upon 
the  testimony."  He  held  in  his  hand  a  newspaper  which, 
earlier  in  the  afternoon,  with  cynical  disregard  of  Fel- 
der's  tactics,  he  had  been  casually  perusing. 

"I  object,  of  course,"  returned  Felder  grimly. 

"Objection  overruled!"  snapped  the  irritated  judge. 
"Bead  it,  sir." 

Holding  the  newspaper  to  a  candle,  the  lawyer  read 
335 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

in  an  even  voice.,  prefacing  his  reading  witK  the  jour 
nal's  name  and  date : 


"This  city,  which  was  aroused  in  the  night  by  the  burning 
of  St.  James  Chapel,  will  be  greatly  shocked  to  learn  that 
its  rector,  the  Reverend  Henry  Sanderson,  who  has  been  for 
some  months  on  a  prolonged  vacation,  was  in  the  building 
at  the  time,  and  now  lies  at  the  city  hospital,  suffering  from 
injuries  from  which  it  is  rumored  there  is  grave  doubt  of 
his  recovery." 


In  the  titter  that  rippled  the  court-room  Harry  felt 
his  heart  bound  and  swell.  Under  the  succinct  statement 
he  clearly  discerned  the  fact.  He  saw  the  pitfall  into 
which  Hugh  had  fallen — the  trap  into  which  he  himself 
had  sent  him  on  that  fatal  errand  with  the  ruby  ring 
on  his  finger.  "Grave  doubt  of  his  recovery !" — a  surge 
of  relief  swept  over  him  to  his  finger-tips.  Dead  men 
can  not  be  brought  to  bar — so  Jessica  would  escape 
shame.  With  Hugh  passed  beyond  human  justice,  he 
could  declare  himself.  The  bishop  had  guarded  his  se 
cret,  and  saved  the  parish  from  an  unwelcome  scandal. 
He  could  explain — could  tell  him  that  illness  and  un 
balance  lay  beneath  that  chapel  game!  He  could  take 
up  his  career !  He  would  be  free  to  go  back — to  be  him 
self  again — to  be  Jessica's — if  Hugh  died !  The  reading 
voice  drummed  in  his  ears : 

336 


FATE'S    WAY 

"The  facts  have  not  as  yet  been  ascertained,  but  it  seems 
clear  that  the  popular  young  minister  returned  to  town  un 
expectedly  last  night,  and  was  asleep  in  his  study  when  the 
fire  started.  His  presence  in  the  building  was  unguessed 
until  too  late,  and  it  was  by  little  short  of  a  miracle  that  he 
was  brought  out  alive. 

"As  we  go  to  press  we  learn  that  Mr.  Sanderson's  condi 
tion  is  much  more  hopeful  than  was  at  first  reported." 


Harry's  heart  contracted  as  if  a  giant  hand  had 
clutched  it.  His  elation  fell  like  a  rotten  tree  girdled 
at  the  roots.  If  Hugh  did  not  die !  He  chilled  as  though 
in  a  spray  of  liquid  air.  Hugh's  escape — the  chance  his 
conscience  had  given  him,  was  cut  off.  He  had  not  be 
trayed  him  when  the  way  was  open ;  how  could  he  do  so 
now  when  flight  was  barred?  If  to  deliver  him  then  to 
the  hangman  would  have  been  cowardice,  how  much 
more  cowardly  now,  when  it  was  to  save  himself,  and 
when  the  other  was  helpless  ?  And  the  law  demanded  its 
victim ! 

As  a  drowning  man  sees  flit  before  him  the  panorama 
of  his  life,  so  in  this  clarifying  instant  these  lurid  pic 
tures  of  the  tangle  of  his  past  flashed  across  Harry's 
mental  vision. 

The  judge  reached  for  the  newspaper  the  lawyer  held, 
ran  his  eye  over  it,  and  brought  his  gavel  down  with  an 
angry  snort. 

337, 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"Take  him  away,"  he  said.  "His  testimony  is  ordered 
stricken  from  the  records.  The  fine  is  remitted,  Mr. 
Felder — we  can't  make  you  responsible  for  lunatics. 
Bailiff,  see  that  this  man  has  no  further  chance  to  dis 
turb  these  proceedings.  The  court  stands  adjourned." 


338 


CHAPTER  XLI 

FELDER   WALKS   WITH   DOCTOR   BRENT 

Felder  had  been  among  the  last  to  leave  the  court 
room.  He  was  discomfited  and  angry.  He  had  meant  to 
make  a  telling  point  for  the  defense,  and  the  unbalanced 
imagination  of  a  strolling,  bigot  gospeller  had  undone 
him.  His  own  precipitate  and  ill-considered  action  had 
uncovered  an  idiotic  mare's-nest,  to  taint  his  appeal  with 
bathos  and  open  his  cause  with  a  farcical  anti-climax. 
He  glumly  gathered  his  scattered  papers,  put  with  them 
the  leaf  of  the  newspaper  from  which  the  district  at 
torney  had  read,  and  despatched  the  lot  to  his  office  by 
a  messenger. 

At  the  door  of  the  court-house  Doctor  Brent  slipped 
an  arm  through  his. 

"Too  bad,  Tom,"  he  said  sympathizingly.  "I  don't 
think  you  quite  deserved  it." 

Felder  paced  a  moment  without  speaking.  "I  need 
evidence,"  he  said  then,  " — anything  that  may  help.  I 
made  a  mistake.  You  heard  all  the  testimony  ?" 

The  other  nodded. 

339 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"What  did  you  think  of  it?" 

"What  could  any  one  think  ?  I  give  all  credit  to  your 
motive,  Tom,  but  it's  a  pity  you're  mixed  up  in  it." 

"Why?" 

"Because,  if  there's  anything  in  human  evidence,  he's 
a  thoroughly  worthless  reprobate.  He  lay  for  Moreau 
and  murdered  him  in  cold  blood,  and  he  ought  to 
swing." 

"The  casual  view,"  said  the  lawyer  gloomily.  "Just 
what  I  should  have  said  myself — if  this  had  happened 
a  month  ago." 

His  friend  looked  at  him  with  an  amused  expression. 
"I  begin  to  think  he  must  be  a  remarkable  man !"  he 
said.  "Is  it  possible  he  has  really  convinced  you  that  he 
isn't  guilty  ?" 

Felder  turned  upon  the  doctor  squarely.  "Yes,"  he 
returned  bluntly.  "He  has.  Whatever  I  may  have 
believed  when  I  took  this  case,  I  have  come  to  the  con 
clusion — against  all  my  professional  instincts,  mind  you 
— that  he  never  killed  Moreau.  I  believe  he's  as  inno 
cent  as  either  you  or  I !" 

The  physician  looked  puzzled.  "You  believe  Moreau's 
hand  didn't  write  that  accusation  ?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"Do  you  think  he  lied?" 

340 


FELDEE  WALKS  WITH  DOCTOE  BEENT 

"I  don't  know  what  to  think.  But  I  am  convinced 
Hugh  Stires  isn't  lying.  There's  a  mystery  in  the  thing 
that  I  can't  get  hold  of.'*  He  caught  the  physician's 
half-smile.  "Oh,  1  know  what  you  think/'  he  said  re 
sentfully.  "You  think  it  is  Miss  Holme.  I  assure  you 
I  am  defending  Hugh  Stires  for  his  own  sake !" 

"She  played  you  a  close  second  to-day,"  observed  the 
doctor  shrewdly.  "That  carnation — I  never  saw  a  thing 
better  done." 

Felder  drew  his  arm  away.  "'Miss  Holme,"  he  said 
almost  stiffly,  "is  as  far  from  acting — " 

"My  dear  fellow !"  exclaimed  the  other.  "Don't  snap 
me  up.  She's  a  gentlewoman,  and  everything  that  is 
lovely.  If  she  were  the  reason,  I  should  honor  you  for 
it.  I'm  very  deeply  sorry  for  her.  For  my  part,  I'm 
sure  I  wish  you  might  get  him  off.  She  loves  him,  and 
doesn't  care  who  sees  it,  and  if  he  were  as  bad  as  the 
worst,  a  woman  like  that  could  make  a  man  of  him. 
But  I  know  juries.  In  towns  like  this  they  take  them 
selves  pathetically  in  earnest.  On  the  evidence  so  far, 
they'll  convict  fast  enough." 

"I  know  it,"  said  the  lawyer  despondently.  "And  yet 
he's  innocent.  I'd  stake  my  life  on  it.  It's  worthless  as 
evidence  and  I  shan't  introduce  it,  but  he  has  as  good 
as  admitted  to  her  that  he  knows  who  did  it." 

341 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

"Come,  come!  Putting  his  neck  into  the  noose  for 
mere  Quixotic  feeling?  And  who,  pray,  in  this  God 
forsaken  town,  should  he  be  sacrificing  himself  for?" 
the  doctor  asked  satirically. 

"That's  the  rub,"  said  the  lawyer.  "Nobody.  Yet  I 
hang  by  my  proposition." 

"Well,  he'll  hang  by  something  less  tenuous,  I'm 
afraid.  But  it  won't  be  your  fault.  The  crazy  evangelist 
was  only  an  incident.  He  merely  served  to  jolt  us  back 
to  the  normal.  By  the  way,  did  you  hear  him  splutter 
after  he  got  out  ?" 

"No." 

"You  remember  the  story  he  told  the  other  night  of 
the  minister  who  was  caught  gambling  on  his  own  com 
munion  table?  Well,  Hugh  Stires  is  not  only  the  Rev 
erend  Henry  Something-or-other,  but  he  is  that  man, 
too !  The  crack-brained  old  idiot  would  have  told  the 
tale  all  over  again,  only  the  crowd  hustled  him. 

"There  he  is  now,"  he  said  suddenly,  as  a  light  sprang 
up  and  voices  broke  out  on  the  opposite  corner.  "The 
gang  is  standing  by.  I  see  your  friend  Barney  McGinn," 
he  added,  with  a  grim  enjoyment.  "I  doubt  if  there  are 
many  converts  to-night." 

Even  as  he  spoke,  there  came  a  shout  of  laughter  and 
warning.  The  spectators  scattered  in  all  directions,  and 

343 


FELDER  WALKS  WITH  DOCTOR  BRENT 

a  stream  of  water  from  a  well-directed  hose  deluged  the 
itinerant  and  his  music-box. 

Ten  minutes  later  the  street  preacher,  drenched  and 
furious,  was  trundling  his  melodeon  toward  Funeral 
Hollow,  on  his  way  to  the  coast. 


343 


CHAPTER  XLII 

THE   RECKONING 

As  Harry  stood  again  in  the  obscure  half-darkness  of 
his  cell,  it  came  to  him  that  the  present  had  a  far-reach 
ing  significance — that  it  was  but  the  handiwork  and 
resultant  of  forces  in  his  own  past.  He  himself  had 
brewed  the  bitter  wormwood  he  must  drink.  Jessica's 
quivering  arraignment  on  that  lurid  wedding-day  in  the 
white  house  in  the  aspens — it  had  been  engraven  ever 
since  on  his  buried  memory ! — rang  in  his  mind : 

You  were  strong  and  he  was  weak.  You  led  and  lie 
followed.  You  were  "Satan  Sanderson/'  Abbot  of  the 
Saints,  the  set  in  which  he  learned  gambling.  You 
helped  to  make  him  what  he  has  become! 

They  had  made  variant  choice,  and  that  choice  had 
left  Harry  Sanderson  in  training  for  the  gaiters  of  a 
bishop,  and  Hugh  Stires  treading  the  paths  of  dalliance 
and  the  gambler.  But  he  himself  had  set  Hugh's  feet 
on  the  red  path  that  had  pointed  him  to  the  shameful 
terminus.  He  had  gambled  for  Hugh's  future,  forget 
ting  that  his  past  remained,  a  thing  that  must  be  cov- 

344 


THE    KECKONING 

ered.  He  had  won  Hugh's  counters,  but  his  own  right 
to  be  himself  he  had  staked  and  lost  long  before  that 
game  on  the  communion  table  under  the  painted  cruci 
fixion. 

The  words  he  had  once  said  to  Hugh  recurred  to  him 
with  a  kind  of  awe :  "Put  myself  in  your  place  ?  I  wish 
to  God  I  could !" 

Fate — or  was  it  God? — had  taken  him  at  his  word. 
He  had  been  hurled  like  a  stone  from  a  catapult  into 
Hugh's  place,  to  bear  his  knavery,  to  suffer  his  dishonor, 
and  to  redeem  the  baleful  reputation  he  had  made.  He 
had  been  his  brother's  keeper  and  had  failed  in  the  trust ; 
now  the  circle  of  retribution,  noiseless  and  inexorable  as 
the  wheeling  of  that  vast  scorpion  cluster  in  the  sky, 
evened  the  score  and  brought  him  again  to  the  test! 
And,  in  the  supreme  strait,  was  he,  a  poor  poltroon,  to 
step  aside,  to  cry  "enough,"  to  yield  ignobly?  Even  if 
to  put  aside  the  temptation  might  bring  him  face  to  face 
with  the  final  shameful  penalty  ? 

This,  then,  was  the  meaning  of  the  strange  sequence 
of  events  through  which  he  had  been  passing  since  the 
hour  when  he  had  awakened  in  the  box-car !  Living,  he 
was  not  to  betray  Hugh ;  the  Great  Purpose  behind  all 
meant  that  he  should  go  forward  on  the  path  he  had 
chosen  to  the  end ! 


SATAN  BAHDBKSON 

A  step  outside  the  cell,  the  turning  of  the  key.  The 
door  opened,  and  Jessica,  pale  and  trembling,  stood  on 
the  threshold. 

"I  can  not  help  it,"  she  said,  as  she  came  toward  him, 
"though  you  told  me  not  to  come.  I  have  trusted  all  the 
while,  and  waited,  and — and  prayed.  But  to-day  I  was 
afraid." 

She  paused,  locking  her  hands  before  her,  looking  at 
him  in  an  agony  of  entreaty.  When  she  had  fled  from 
the  court-room  to  the  open  air,  she  had  walked  straight 
away  toward  the  mountain,  struggling  in  the  cool  wind 
and  motion  against  the  feeling  of  physical  sickness  and 
anguish.  But  she  had  only  partly  regained  her  self- 
possession.  Returning,  the  thinning  groups  about  the 
dim-lit  door  had  made  it  clear  that  the  session  was  over. 
In  her  painful  confusion  of  mind  she  had  acted  on  a 
peremptory  impulse  that  drove  her  to  the  jail,  where  her 
face  had  quickly  gained  her  entrance. 

"Surely,  surely,"  she  went  on,  "the  man  you  are  pro 
tecting  has  had  time  enough!  Hasn't  he?  Won't  you 
tell  them  the  truth  now  ?" 

He  knew  not  how  to  meet  the  piteous  reproach  and 
terror  of  that  look.  She  had  not  heard  the  street  preach 
er's  declaration,  he  knew,  but  even  if  she  had,  it  would 
have  been  to  her  only  an  echo  of  the  old  mooted  like- 

346 


THE   RECKONING 

ness.  He  had  given  her  comfort  once — but  this  was  no 
more  to  be.  No  matter  what  it  meant  to  him,  or  to  her ! 

"Jessica/'  he  said  steadily,  "when  you  came  to  me  here 
that  first  day,  and  I  told  you  not  to  fear  for  me,  I  did 
not  mean  to  deceive  you.  I  thought  then  that  it  would 
all  come  right.  But  something  has  happened  since  then 
— something  that  makes  a  difference.  I  can  not  tell  who 
was  the  murderer  of  Moreau.  I  can  not  tell  you  or  any 
one  else,  either  now  or  at  any  time." 

She  gazed  at  him  startled.  She  had  a  sudden  concep 
tion  of  some  element  hitherto  unguessed  in  his  make-up, 
something  inveterate  and  adamant.  Could  it  be  that 
he  did  not  intend  to  tell  at  all?  The  very  idea  was 
monstrous !  Yet  that  clearly  was  his  meaning.  She 
looked  at  him  with  flashing  eyes. 

"You  mean  you  will  not?"  she  exclaimed  bitterly. 
"You  are  bent  on  sacrificing  yourself,  then !  You  are 
going  to  take  this  risk  because  you  think  it  brave  and 
noble,  because  somehow  it  fits  your  man's  gospel !  Can't 
you  see  how  wicked  and  selfish  it  is  ?  You  are  thinking 
only  of  him,  and  of  yourself,  not  of  me !" 

"Jessica,  Jessica !"  he  protested  with  a  groan.  But  in 
the  self-torture  of  her  questionings  she  paid  no  heed. 

"Don't  you  think  I  suffer?  Haven't  I  borne  enough 
in  the  months  since  I  married  you,  for  you  to  want  to 

347 


SATAN   SANDERSON" 

save  me  this  ?  Do  you  owe  me  nothing,  me  whom  you 
so  wronged,  whose — " 

She  stopped  suddenly  at  the  look  on  his  face  of  mortal 
pain,  for  she  had  struck  harder  than  she  knew.  It 
pierced  through  the  fierce  resentment  to  her  deepest 
heart,  and  all  her  love  and  pity  gushed  back  upon  her 
in  a  torrent.  She  threw  herself  on  her  knees  by  the  bare 
cot,  crying  passionately : 

"Oh,  forgive  me !  Forget  what  I  said !  I  did  not 
mean  it.  I  have  forgiven  you  a  thousand  times  over. 
I  never  ceased  to  love  you.  I  love  you  now,  more  than 
all  the  world." 

"It  is  true/'  he  said,  hoarse  misery  in  his  tone.  "I 
have  wronged  you.  If  I  could  coin  my  blood  drop  by 
drop,  to  pay  for  the  past,  I  could  not  set  that  right.  If 
giving  my  life  over  and  over  again  would  save  you  pain, 
I  would  give  it  gladly.  But  what  you  ask  now  is  the  one 
thing  I  can  not  do.  It  would  make  me  a  pitiful  coward. 
I  did  not  kill  Moreau.  That  is  all  I  can  say  to  you  or 
to  those  who  try  me." 

"Your  life!"  she  said  with  dry  lips.  "It  will  mean 
that.  That  counts  so  fearfully  much  to  me — more  than 
my  own  life  a  hundred  times.  Yet  there  is  something 
that  counts  more  than  all  that  to  you !" 

His  face  was  that  of  a  man  who  holds  his  hand  in 
343 


THE   RECKONING 

'the  fire.  "Jessica,"  he  said,  "it  is  like  this  with  me. 
When  you  found  me  here — the  day  I  saw  you  on  the 
balcony — I  was  a  man  whose  soul  had  lost  its  compass 
and  its  bearings.  My  conscience  was  asleep.  You  woke 
it,  and  it  is  fiercely  alive  now.  And  now  with  my  mem 
ory  has  come  back  a  debt  of  my  past  that  I  never  paid. 
Whatever  the  outcome,  for  my  souFs  sake  I  must  settle 
it  now  and  wipe  it  from  the  score  for  ever.  Nothing 
counts — nothing  can  count — more  than  you !  But  I 
must  sail  by  the  needle ;  I  must  be  truthful  to  the  best 
that  is  in  me." 

She  rose  slowly  to  her  feet  with  a  despairing  gesture. 

ff  'He  saved  others/ "  she  quoted  in  a  hard  voice, 
(f  'himself  he  could  not  save !'  I  once  heard  a  minister 
preach  from  that  text  at  home ;  it  was  your  friend,  the 
Reverend  Henry  Sanderson.  I  thought  it  a  very  spirit 
ual  sermon  then — that  was  before  I  knew  what  his  com 
panionship  had  been  to  you !" 

In  the  exclamation  was  the  old  bitterness  that  had 
had  its  spring  in  that  far-away  evening  at  the  white 
house  in  the  aspens,  when  Harry  Sanderson  had  lifted 
the  curtain  from  his  college  career.  In  spite  of  David 
Stires'  predilection,  since  that  day  she  had  distrusted 
and  disliked,  at  moments  actively  hated  him.  His  man 
nerisms  had  seemed  a  pose  and  his  pretensions  hypocrisy. 

349 


SATAX   SANDERSON 

On  her  wedding-day,  when  she  lashed  him  with  the 
blame  of  Hugh's  ruin,  this  had  become  an  ingrained 
prejudice,  impregnable  because  rooted  deeper  than  rea 
son,  in  the  heritage  of  her  sex,  the  eternal  proclivity, 
which  saw  Harry  Sanderson,  his  motley  covered  with 
the  sober  domino  of  the  Church,  standing  self-right- 
eously  in  surplice  and  stole,  while  Hugh  slid  downward 
to  disgrace. 

"If  there  were  any  justice  in  the  universe,"  she  added, 
"it  should  be  he  immolating  himself  now,  not  you !" 

His  face  was  not  toward  her  and  she  could  not  see  it 
go  deadly  white.  The  sudden  shift  she  had  given  the 
conversation  had  startled  him.  He  turned  to  the  tiny 
barred  window  that  looked  out  across  the  court-yard 
square — where  such  a  little  time  since  he  had  found  his 
lost  self. 

"I  think,"  he  said,  "that  in  my  place,  he  would  do 
the  same." 

"You  always  admired  him,"  she  went  on,  the  hard 
ring  of  misery  in  her  tone.  "You  admire  him  yet.  Oh, 
men  like  him  have  such  strange  and  wicked  power ! 
Satan  Sanderson ! — it  was  a  fit  name.  What  right  has 
he  to  be  rector  of  St.  James,  while  you — " 

He  put  out  a  hand  in  flinching  protest.  "Jessica! 
Don't !"  he  begged. 

350 


THE   RECKONING 

"Why  should  I  not  say  it  ?"  she  retorted,  with  quiver 
ing  lips.  "But  for  him  you  would  never  be  here !  He 
ruined  your  life  and  mine,,  and  I  hate  and  despise  him 
for  a  selfish  hypocrite  !" 

That  was  what  he  himself  had  seemed  to  her  in  those 
old  days !  The  edge  of  a  flush  touched  his  forehead  as 
he  said  slowly,  almost  appealingly: 

"He  was  not  a  hypocrite,  Jessica.  Whatever  he  was 
it  was  not  that.  At  college  he  did  what  he  did  too 
openly.  That  was  his  failing — not  caring  what  others 
thought.  He  despised  weakness  in  others;  he  thought 
it  none  of  his  affair.  So  others  were  influenced.  But 
after  he  came  to  see  things  differently,  from  another 
standpoint — when  he  went  into  the  ministry — he  would 
have  given  the  world  to  undo  it." 

"That  may  have  been  the  Harry  Sanderson  you 
knew,"  she  said  stonily.  "The  one  I  knew  drove  an  im 
ported  motor-car  and  had  a  dozen  fads  that  people 
were  always  imitating.  You  are  still  loyal  to  the  old 
college  worship.  As  men  go,  you  count  him  still  your 
friend!" 

"As  men  go,"  he  echoed  grimly,  "the  very  closest !" 

"Men's  likings  are  strange,"  she  said.  "Because  he 
never  had  temptations  like  yours,  and  has  never  done 
what  the  law  calls  wrong,  you  think  he  is  as  noble  as 

351 


SATAN    SANDERSON" 

you — noble  enough  to  shield  a  murderer  to  his  own 
danger." 

"Ah,  no,  Jessica,"  he  interposed  gently.  "I  only  said 
that  in  my  place,  he  would  do  the  same." 

"But  you  are  shielding  a  murderer,"  she  insisted 
fiercely.  "You  will  not  admit  it,  but  I  know!  There 
can  be  no  justice  or  right  in  that !  If  Harry  Sanderson 
is  all  you  think  him — if  he  stood  here  now  and  knew  the 
whole — he  would  say  it  was  wicked.  Not  brave  and 
noble  but  wicked  and  cruel !" 

He  shook  his  head,  and  the  sad  shadow  of  a  bitter 
smile  touched  his  lips.  "He  would  not  say  so,"  he  said. 

A  dry  sob  answered  him.  He  turned  and  leaned  his 
elbows  on  the  narrow  window-sill,  every  nerve  aching, 
but  powerless  to  comfort.  He  heard  her  step — the  door 
closed  sharply. 

Then  he  faced  into  the  empty  cell,  sat  down  on  the 
cot  and  threw  out  his  arms  with  a  hopeless  cry : 

"Jessica,  Jessica!" 


352 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

THE   LITTLE   GOLD   CROSS 

Jessica  left  the  jail  with  despair  in  her  heart.  The 
hope  on  which  she  had  fed  these  past  days  had  failed 
her.  What  was  there  left  for  her  to  do?  Like  a  swift 
wind  she  went  up  the  street  to  Felder's  office. 

A  block  heyond  the  court-house  a  crowd  was  enjoying 
the  watery  discomfiture  of  Hallelujah  Jones,  and  shrink 
ing  from  recognition  even  in  the  darkness — for  the  arc 
lights  were  still  black — she  crossed  the  roadway  and  ran 
on  to  the  unpretentious  building  where  the  lawyer  had 
his  sanctum.  She  groped  her  way  up  the  unlighted  stair 
and  tapped  on  the  door.  There  was  no  answer.  She 
pushed  it  open  and  entered  the  empty  outer  room,  where 
a  study  lamp  burned  on  the  desk. 

A  pile  of  legal  looking  papers  had  been  set  beside  it 
and  with  them  lay  a  torn  page  of  a  newspaper  whose 
familiar  caption  gave  her  a  stab  of  pain.  Perhaps  the 
news  of  the  trial  had  found  its  way  across  the  ranges, 
to  where  the  names  of  Stires  and  Moreau  had  been 
known.  Perhaps  every  one  at  Aniston  already  knew  of 

353 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

it,  was  reading  about  it,  pitying  her ! .  She  picked  it  up 
and  scanned  it  hastily.  There  was  no  hint  of  the  trial, 
but  her  eye  caught  the  news  which  had  played  its  role 
in  the  court-room,  and  she  read  it  to  the  end. 

Even  in  her  own  trouble  she  read  it  with  a  shiver. 
Yet,  awful  as  the  fate  which  Harry  Sanderson  had  so 
narrowly  missed,  it  was  not  to  be  compared  with  that 
which  awaited  Hugh,  for,  awful  as  it  was,  it  held  no 
shame ! 

In  a  gust  of  feeling  she  slipped  to  her  knees  by  the 
one  sofa  the  room  contained  and  prayed  passionately. 
As  she  drew  out  her  handkerchief  to  stanch  the  tears 
that  came,  something  fell  with  a  musical  tinkle  at  her 
feet.  It  was  the  little  cross  she  had  found  in  front  of 
the  hillside  cabin,  that  had  lain  forgotten  in  her  pocket 
during  the  past  anxious  days.  She  picked  it  up  now  and 
held  it  tightly  in  her  hand,  as  if  the  tangible  symbol 
brought  her  closer  to  the  Infinite  Sympathy  to  which 
she  turned  in  her  misery.  As  she  pressed  it,  the  ring  at 
the  top  turned  and  the  cross  parted  in  halves.  Words 
were  engraved  on  the  inside  of  the  arms — a  date  and  the 
name  Henry  Sanderson. 

The  recurrence  of  the  name  jarred  and  surprised  her. 
Hugh  had  dropped  it — an  old  keepsake  of  the  friend 
who  had  been  his  beau  ideal,  his  exemplar,  and  whose 

354 


THE    LITTLE    GOLD    CROSS 

ancient  influence  was  still  dominant.  He  had  clung 
loyally  to  the  memento,  blind  in  his  constant  liking,  to 
the  wrong  that  friend  had  done  him.  She  looked  at  the 
date — it  was  May  28th.  She  shuddered,  for  that  was 
the  month  and  day  on  which  Doctor  Moreau  had  been 
killed — the  point  had  been  clearly  established  to-day  by 
the  prosecution.  To  the  original  owner  of  that  cross, 
perhaps,  the  date  that  had  come  into  Hugh's  life  with 
such  a  sinister  meaning,  was  a  glad  anniversary ! 

Suddenly  she  caught  her  hand  to  her  cheek.  A  weird 
idea  had  rushed  through  her  brain.  The  religious  sym 
bol  had  stood  for  Harry  Sanderson  and  the  chance  co 
incidence  of  date  had  irresistibly  pointed  to  the  murder. 
To  her  excited  senses  the  juxtaposition  held  a  bizarre, 
uncanny  suggestion.  This  cross — the  very  emblem  of 
vicarious  sacrifice  ! — suppose  Harry  .Sanderson  had  never 
given  it  to  Hugh !  Suppose  he  had  lost  it  on  the  hill 
side  himself ! 

She  snatched  up  the  paper  again :  "Who  has  been  for 
some  months  on  a  prolonged  vacation" — the  phrase 
stared  sardonically  at  her.  That  might  carry  far  back — 
she  said  it  under  her  breath,  fearfully — beyond  the  mur 
der  of  Doctor  Moreau !  Her  face  burned,  and  her  breath 
came  sharp  and  fast.  Why,  when  she  brought  her  warn 
ing  to  the  cabin,  had  Hugh  been  so  anxious  to  get  her 

3«-  ^ 
oo 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

away,  unless  to  prevent  her  sight  of  the  man  who  was 
there — to  whom  he  had  taken  her  horse  ?  Who  was  there 
in  Smoky  Mountain  whom  he  would  protect  at  hazard 
of  his  own  life?  Yet  in  this  crisis,  even,  her  appeal  to 
his  love  had  been  fruitless.  He  had  called  Harry  San 
derson  his  closest  friend,  had  said  that  in  his  place 
Harry  would  do  the  same.  She  remembered  his  cry: 
"What  you  ask  is  the  one  thing  I  can  not  do.  It  would 
make  me  a  pitiful  coward !"  She  had  asked  only  that  he 
tell  the  truth.  To  protect  a  vulgar  murderer  was  not 
courageous.  But  what  if  they  were  bound  by  ties  of  old 
friendship  and  college  camaraderie?  Men  had  their 
standards. 

Jessica's  veins  were  all  afire.  A  rector-murderer  ?  A 
double  career  ?  Was  it  beyond  possibility  ?  At  the  sana 
torium  she  had  re-read  The  Mystery  of  Edwin  Drood; 
now  she  thought  of  John  Jasper,  the  choir-master,  steal 
ing  away  from  the  cathedral  to  the  London  opium  den 
to  plan  the  murder  of  his  nephew.  The  mad  thought 
gripped  her  imagination.  Harry  Sanderson  had  been 
wild  and  lawless  in  his  university  days,  a  gamester,  a 
skeptic — the  Abbot  of  the  Saints!  To  her  his  pre 
tensions  had  never  seemed  more  than  a  graceful  sham, 
the  generalities  of  religion  he  spread  for  the  delectation 
of  fashionable  St.  James  only  "as  sounding  brass  and  a 

356 


THE    LITTLE    GOLD    CHOSS 

tinkling  cymbal."  He  had  been  a  hard  drinker  in  those 
days.  What  if  the  old  desire  had  run  on  beneath  the  fair 
exterior,  denied  and  repressed  till  it  had  burst  control — 
till  he  had  fled  from  those  who  knew  him,  to  Hugh,  in 
whose  loyalty  he  trusted,  to  give  it  rein  in  a  debauch? 
Say  that  this  had  happened,  and  that  in  the  midst  of  it 
Moreau,  whom  he  had  known  in  Aniston,  had  come  upon 
him.  Anticipating  recognition,  to  cover  his  own  shame 
and  save  his  career,  in  drunken  frenzy  perhaps,  he  might 
have  fired  the  shot  on  the  hillside — that  Moreau,  taken 
unawares,  had  thought  was  Hugh's ! 

It  came  to  her  like  an  impinging  ray  of  light — the  old 
curious  likeness  that  had  sometimes  been  made  a  jest 
of  at  the  white  house  in  the  aspens.  Moreau  and  Pren- 
dergast  had  believed  it  to  be  Hugh !  So  had  the  town, 
for  the  body  had  been  found  on  his  ground !  But  on  the 
night  when  the  real  murderer  came  again  to  the  cabin — 
perhaps  it  was  his  coming  that  had  brought  back  the 
lost  memory ! — Hugh  had  known  the  truth.  In  the  light 
of  this  supposition  his  strained  manner  then,  his  present 
determination  not  to  speak,  all  stood  plain. 

What  had  he  meant  by  a  debt  of  his  past  that  he  had 
never  paid  ?  He  could  owe  no  debt  to  Harry  Sanderson. 
If  he  owed  any  debt,  it  was  to  his  dead  father,  a  thousand 
times  more  than  the  draft  he  had  repaid.  Could  he  be 

357 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

thinking  in  his  remorse  that  his  father  had  cast  him 
oft' — counting  himself  nothing,  remembering  only  that 
Harry  Sanderson  had  been  David  Stires'  favorite,  and 
St.  James,  which  must  be  smirched  by  the  odium  of  its 
rector,  the  apple  of  his  eye  ? 

Jessica  had  snatched  at  a  straw,  because  it  was  the 
only  buoyant  thing  afloat  in  the  dragging  tide ;  now  with 
a  blind  fatuousness  she  hugged  it  tighter  to  her  bosom. 
The  joints  of  her  reasoning  seemed  to  dovetail  with  fate 
ful  accuracy.  She  was  swayed  by  instinct,  and  apparent 
fallacies  were  glozed  by  old  mistrust  and  terror  of  the 
outcome  which  was  driving  her  to  any  desperate  expedi 
ent.  Beside  Hugh's  salvation  the  whole  universe 
counted  as  nothing.  She  was  in  the  grip  of  that  fierce 
passion  of  love's  defense  which  feeds  the  romance  of 
the  world.  One  purpose  possessed  her :  to  confront  Harry 
Sanderson.  What  matter  though  she  missed  the  re 
mainder  of  the  trial  ?  She  could  do  nothing — her  hands 
were  tied.  If  the  truth  lay  at  Aniston  she  would  find  it. 
She  thought  no  further  than  this.  Orice  in  Harry  San 
derson's  presence,  what  she  should  say  or  do  she  scarcely 
imagined.  The  horrifying  question  filled  her  thought 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  that  must  follow  its  answer.  It 
was  surety  and  self-conviction  she  craved — only  to  read 
in  his  eyes  the  truth  about  the  murder  of  Moreau. 

358 


THE   LITTLE    GOLD    CEOSS 

She  suddenly  began  to  tremble.  Would  the  doctors 
let  her  see  him?  What  excuse  could  she  give?  If  he 
was  the  man  who  had  been  in  Hugh's  cabin  that  night, 
he  had  heard  her  speak,  had  known  she  was  there.  He 
must  not  know  beforehand  of  her  coming,  lest  he  have 
suspicion  of  her  errand.  Bishop  Ludlow — he  could  gain 
her  access  to  him.  Injured,  dying  perhaps,  maybe  he 
did  not  guess  that  Hugh  was  in  jeopardy  for  his  crime. 
Guilty  and  dying,  if  he  knew  this,  he  would  surely  tell 
the  truth.  But  if  he  died  before  she  could  reach  him? 
The  paper  was  some  days  old ;  he  might  be  dead  already. 
She  took  heart,  however,  from  the  statement  of  his  im 
proved  condition. 

She  sprang  to  her  feet  and  looked  at  her  chatelaine 
watch.  The  east-bound  express  was  overdue.  There  was 
no  time  to  lose — minutes  might  count.  She  examined 
her  purse — she  had  money  enough  with  her. 

Five  minutes  later  she  was  at  the  station,  a  scribbled 
note  was  on  its  way  to  Mrs.  Halloran,  and  before  a 
swinging  red  lantern,  the  long  incoming  train  was  shud 
dering  to  a  stop. 


359 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

THE   IMPOSTOR 

In  the  long  hospital  the  air  was  cool  and  filtered,  drab 
figures  passed  with  soft  footfalls  and  voices  were  meas 
ured  and  hushed.  But  no  sense  of  coolness  or  repose 
had  come  to  the  man  whose  racked  body  had  been  ten 
derly  borne  there  in  the  snowy  dawn  which  saw  the 
blackened  ruins  of  Aniston's  most  perfect  edifice. 

Because  of  him  tongues  clacked  on  the  street  corner 
and  bulletins  were  posted  in  newspaper  windows;  car 
riages  of  tasteful  equipment  halted  at  the  hospital  porte- 
cochere,  messages  flew  back  and  forth,  and  the  telephone 
in  the  outer  office  whirred  busily  at  unseasonable  hours ; 
but  from  the  clean  screened  room  where  he  lay,  all  this 
was  shut  out.  Only  the  surgeons  came  and  went,  deftly 
refreshing  the  bandages  which  swathed  one  side  of  his 
face,  where  the  disfiguring  flame  had  smitten — the  other 
side  was  untouched,  save  for  a  line  across  the  brow, 
seemingly  a  thin,  red  mark  of  excoriation. 

Hugh  had  sunk  into  unconsciousness  with  the  awe 
struck  exclamation  ringing  in  his  ears :  "Good  God ! 

360 


THE    IMPOSTOR 

It's  Harry  Sanderson!"  He  had  drifted  back  to  con 
scious  knowledge  with  the  same  words  racing  in  his 
brain.  They  implied  that,  so  far  as  capture  went,  the 
old,  curious  resemblance  would  stand  his  friend  till  he 
betrayed  himself,  or  till  the  existence  of  the  real  Harry 
Sanderson  at  Smoky  Mountain  did  so  for  him.  The  de 
lusion  must  hold  till  he  could  have  himself  moved  to 
some  place  where  his  secret  would  be  safer — till  he  could 
get  away ! 

This  thought  grew  swiftly  paramount;  it  overlapped 
the  rigid  agony  of  his  burns  that  made  the  bed  on  which 
he  lay  a  fiery  furnace ;  it  gave  method  to  his  every  word 
and  look.  He  took  up  the  difficult  part,  and  after  the 
superficial  anguish  dulled,  complained  no  more  and  suc 
cessfully  counterfeited  cheerfulness  and  betterment.  He 
said  nothing  of  the  curiously  recurrent  and  sickening 
stab  of  pain,  searching  and  deep-seated,  that  took  his 
breath  and  left  each  time  an  increasing  giddiness. 
Whatever  inner  hurt  this  might  betoken,  he  must  hide 
it,  the  sooner  to  leave  the  hospital,  where  each  hour 
brought  nearer  the  inevitable  disclosure. 

He  thanked  fortune  now  for  the  chapel  game;  few 
enough  in  Aniston  would  care  to  see  the  unfrocked,  dis 
graced  rector  of  St.  James !  He  did  not  know  that  the 
secret  was  Bishop  Ludlow's  own,  until  the  hour  when 

361 


SATAX   SANDERSON 

he  opened  his  eyes,  after  a  fitful  sleep,  upon  the  lattcr's 
face. 

The  bishop  was  the  first  visitor  and  it  was  his  first 
visit,  for  he  had  been  in  a  distant  city  at  the  time  of  the 
fire.  Waiting  the  waking,  he  had  been  mystified  at  the 
change  a  few  months  had  wrought  in  the  countenance 
of  the  man  whose  disappearance  had  cost  him  so  many 
sleepless  hours.  The  months  of  indulgence  and  rich 
living — on  the  money  he  had  won  from  Harry — had 
taken  away  Hugh's  slightness,  and  his  fuller  cheeks 
were  now  of  the  contour  of  Harry's  own.  But  the  bishop 
distinguished  new  lines  in  the  face  on  the  pillow,  an 
expression  unfamiliar  and  puzzling;  the  firmness  and 
strength  were  gone,  and  in  their  place  was  a  haunting 
something  that  gave  him  a  flitting  suggestion  of  the 
discarded  that  he  could  not  shake  off. 

Waking,  the  unexpected  sight  of  the  bishop  startled 
Hugh;  to  the  good  man's  pain  he  had  turned  his  face 
away. 

"My  dear  boy,"  the  bishop  had  said,  "they  tell  me  you 
are  stronger  and  better.  I  thank  God  for  it !" 

He  spoke  gently  and  with  deep  feeling.  How  could 
he  tell  to  what  extent  he  himself,  in  mistaken  severity, 
had  been  responsible  for  that  unaccustomed  look  ?  When 
Hugh  did  not  answer,  the  bishop  misconstrued  the  si- 

362 


THE    IMPOSTOR 

lence.  He  leaned  over  the  bed;  the  big  cool  hand 
touched  the  fevered  one  on  the  white  coverlid,  where  the 
ruby  ring  glowed,  a  coal  in  snow. 

"Harry,"  he  said,  "you  have  suffered — you  are  suffer 
ing  now.  But  think  of  me  only  as  your  friend.  I  ask 
no  questions.  We  are  going  to  begin  again  where  we 
left  off." 

The  words  and  tone  had  shown  Hugh  the  situation 
and  given  him  his  cue.  He  could  put  himself  fairly  in 
Harry's  place,  and  with  the  instinct  of  the  actor  he  did 
so  now,  meeting  the  others  friendliness  with  a  hesitant 
eagerness. 

"I  would  like  to  do  that,"  he  said,  " — to  begin  again. 
But  the  chapel  is  gone." 

"Never  mind  that,"  said  the  bishop  cheerfully.  "You 
are  only  to  get  well.  We  are  going  to  rebuild  soon,  and 
we  want  your  judgment  on  the  plans.  Aniston  is  hang 
ing  on  your  condition,  Harry,"  he  went  on.  "There's  a 
small  cartload  of  visiting-cards  down-stairs  for  you.  But 
I  imagine  you  haven't  begun  to  receive  yet,  eh  ?" 

"I — I've  seen  nobody."  Hugh  spoke  hurriedly  and 
hoarsely.  "Tell  the  doctor  to  let  no  one  come — no  one 
but  you.  I — I'm  not  up  to  it !" 

"Why,  of  course  not,"  said  the  bishop  quickly.  "You 
need  quiet,  and  the  people  can  wait." 

363 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

The  bishop  chatted  a  while  of  the  parish,  Hugh  re 
plying  only  when  he  must,  and  went  away  heartened. 
Before  he  left  Hugh  saw  his  way  to  hasten  his  own  go 
ing.  On  the  next  visit  the  seed  was  dropped  in  the 
bishop's  mind  so  cleverly  that  he  thought  the  idea  his 
own.  That  day  he  said  to  the  surgeon  in  charge : 

"He  is  gaining  so  rapidly,  I  have  been  wondering  if 
he  couldn't  be  taken  away  where  the  climate  will  benefit 
him.  Will  he  be  able  to  travel  soon  ?" 

"I  think  so,"  answered  the  surgeon.  "We  suspected 
internal  injury  at  first,  but  I  imagine  the  worst  he  has 
to  fear  is  the  disfigurement.  Mountain  or  sea  air  would 
do  him  good,"  he  added  reflectively ;  "what  he  will  need 
is  tonic  and  building  up." 

The  bishop  had  revolved  this  in  his  mind.  He  knew 
a  place  on  the  coast,  tucked  away  in  the  cypresses,  which 
would  be  admirable  for  convalescence.  He  could  arrange 
a  special  car  and  he  himself  could  make  the  journey 
with  him.  He  proposed  this  to  the  surgeon  and  with 
his  approval  put  his  plan  in  motion.  In  two  days  more 
Hugh  found  his  going  fully  settled. 

The  idea  admirably  fitted  his  necessity.  The  spot  the 
bishop  had  selected  was  quiet  and  retired,  and  more,  was 
near  the  port  at  which  he  could  most  readily  take  ship 
for  South  America.  Only  one  reflection  made  him 

364 


THE    IMPOSTOR 

shiver :  the  route  lay  through  the  town  of  Smoky  Moun 
tain.  Yet  who  would  dream  of  looking  for  a  fugitive 
from  the  law  in  the  secluded  car  that  carried  a  sick 
man?  The  risk  would  be  small  enough,  and  it  was  the 
one  way  open ! 

On  the  last  afternoon  before  the  departure,  Hugh 
asked  for  the  clothes  he  had  worn  when  he  was  brought 
to  the  hospital,  found  the  gold-pieces  he  had  snatched 
in  the  burning  chapel  and  tied  them  in  a  handkerchief 
about  his  neck.  They  would  suffice  to  buy  his  sea- 
passage.  The  one  red  counter  he  had  kept — it  was  from 
henceforth  to  be  a  reminder  of  the  good  resolutions  he 
had  made  so  long  ago — he  slipped  into  a  pocket  of  the 
clothes  he  was  to  wear  away,  a  suit  of  loose,  comfortable 
tweed. 

Waiting  restlessly  for  the  hour  of  his  going,  Hugh 
asked  for  the  newspapers.  Since  the  first  he  had  had 
them  read  to  him  each  day,  listening  fearfully  for  the 
hue  and  cry.  But  to-day  the  surgeon  put  his  request 
aside. 

"After  you  are  there,"  he  said,  "if  Bishop  Ludlow  will 
let  you.  Not  now.  You  are  almost  out  of  my  clutches, 
and  I  must  tyrannize  while  I  can/' 

A  quick  look  passed  from  him  to  his  assistant  as  he 
spoke,  for  the  newspapers  that  afternoon  had  worn  start- 

365 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

ling  head-lines.  The  sordid  affairs  of  a  mining  town 
across  the  ranges  had  little  interest  for  Aniston,  but  the 
names  of  Stires  and  Moreau  on  the  clicking  wire  had 
waked  it,  thus  late,  to  the  sensation.  The  professional 
caution  of  the  tinker  of  human  bodies  wished,  however, 
that  no  excitement  should  be  added  to  the  unavoidable 
fatigue  of  his  patient's  departure. 

This  fatigue  was  near  to  spelling  defeat,  after  all,  for 
the  exertion  brought  again  the  dreadful,  stabbing  pain, 
and  this  time  it  carried  Hugh  into  a  region  where  feel 
ing  ceased,  consciousness  passed,  and  from  which  he 
struggled  back  finally  to  find  the  surgeon  bending  anx 
iously  over  him. 

"I  don't  like  that  sinking  spell/'  the  latter  confided  to 
his  assistant  an  hour  later  as  they  stood  looking  through 
the  window  after  the  receding  carriage.  "It  was  too  pro 
nounced.  Yet  he  has  complained  of  no  pain.  He  will  be 
in  good  hands  at  any  rate."  He  tapped  the  glass  mus 
ingly  with  his  forefinger.  "It's  curious,"  he  said  after  a 
pause ;  "I  always  liked  Sanderson — in  the  pulpit.  Some 
how  he  doesn't  appeal  to  me  at  close  range." 

The  special  car  which  the  bishop  had  ready  had  been 
made  a  pleasant  interior;  fern-boxes  were  in  the  cor 
ners,  a  caged  canary  swung  from  a  bracket,  and  a  softly 
cushioned  couch  had  been  prepared  for  the  sick  man.  A 

366 


THE    IMPOSTOR 

moment  before  the  start,  as  it  was  being  coupled  to  the 
rear  of  the  resting  train,  while  the  bishop  chatted  with 
the  conductor,  a  flustered  messenger  boy  handed  him  a 
telegram.  It  read : 

I  arrive  Aniston  to-morrow  five.  Confidential.  Must  see 
you.  Urgent.  JESSICA. 

The  bishop  read  it  in  some  perplexity.  It  was  the  first 
word  he  had  received  from  her  since  her  marriage,  but, 
aware  of  Hugh's  forgery  and  disgrace,  he  had  not  won 
dered  at  this.  Since  the  news  of  David  Stires'  death,  he 
had  looked  for  her  return,  for  she  was  the  old  man's 
heir  and  mistress  now  of  the  white  house  in  the  aspens. 
But  he  realized  that  it  would  need  all  her  courage  to 
come  back  to  this  town  whence  she  had  fled  with  her 
trouble — to  lay  bare  an  unsuspected  and  shameful  secret, 
to  meet  old  friends,  and  answer  questions  that  must  be 
asked.  The  newspapers  to-day  pictured  a  still  worse 
shame  for  her,  in  the  position  of  the  man  who,  in  name 
still,  was  her  husband — who  had  trod  so  swiftly  the 
downward  path  from  thievery  to  the  worst  of  crimes. 
Could  Jessica's  coming  have  to  do  with  that?  He  must 
see  her,  yet  his  departure  could  not  now  be  delayed.  He 
consulted  with  the  conductor  and  the  latter  pored  over 
his  tablets. 

367 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

As  a  result,  his  answering  message  flashed  along  the 
wires  to  Jessica's  far-away  train: 

Sanderson  injured.   Taking  him  to  coast  train  forty-eight 
due  Twin  Peaks  two  to-morrow  afternoon. 

And  thus  the  fateful  moment  approached  when  the 
great  appeal  should  be  made. 


3G8 


CHAPTER   XLV 

Atf   APPEAL   TO    CAESAR 

The  evidence  of  the  first  day's  trial  of  the  case  of  the 
People  against  Hugh  S'tires  was  the  all-engrossing  topic 
that  night  in  Smoky  Mountain.  In  the  "Amen  Corner" 
of  the  Mountain  Valley  House  it  held  sway.  Among  the 
sedate  group  there  gathered,  there  seemed  but  one  belief : 
that  the  accused  man  was  guilty — but  one  feeling:  that 
of  regret.  Gravity  lay  so  heavily  upon  the  atmosphere 
there  that  when  Mrs.  Halloran  momentarily  entered  the 
discussion  to  declare  fiercely  that  "if  Hugh  Stires  was  a 
murderer,  then  they  were  all  thieves  and  she  a  cannibal" 
she  aroused  no  smile.  Barney  McGinn  perhaps  aptly  ex 
pressed  the  consensus  of  opinion  when  he  said :  "I  allow 
we  all  know  he's  guilty,  but  nobody  believes  it." 

Late  as  Smoky  Mountain  sat  up  that  night,  however, 
it  was  on  hand  next  morning,  rank  and  file,  when  the 
court  convened. 

All  the  previous  evening,  save  for  a  short  visit  to  the 
cell  of  his  client,  Felder  had  remained  shut  in  his  office, 
thinking  of  the  morrow.  In  his  talk  with  Harry  he  had 

369 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

not  concealed  his  deep  anxiety,  but  to  his  questions  there 
was  no  new  answer,  and  he  had  returned  from  the  inter 
view  more  nonplussed  than  ever.  He  had  wondered  that 
Jessica,  on  this  last  night,  did  not  come  to  his  office,  but 
had  been  rather  relieved  than  otherwise  that  she  did  not. 
He  had  gone  to  bed  heavy  with  discouragement  and  had 
waked  in  the  morning  with  foreboding. 

As  he  shook  hands  with  the  prisoner  in  the  packed 
court-room,  Felder  felt  a  keen  admiration  that  his  sense 
of  painful  impotence  could  not  overlay.  He  read  in  the 
composed  face  the  same  prescience  that  possessed  him, 
but  it  held  no  fear  or  shadow  of  turning.  He  was  facing 
the  scaffold ;  facing  it — if  the  woman  he  loved  was  right 
in  her  conclusions — in  obedience  to  a  set  idea  of  self- 
martyrdom  and  with  indomitable  spirit.  It  was  incon 
ceivable  that  a  sane  man  would  do  this  for  a  sneaking 
assassin.  It  was  either  aberration  or  a  relentless  pur 
pose  so  extraordinary  that  it  lay  far  removed  from  the 
ordinary  courses  of  reasoning.  Felder's  own  conviction 
had  no  bolstering  of  fact,  no  logical  premise;  indeed, 
as  he  had  admitted  to  Doctor  Brent,  it  was  thoroughly 
unprofessional.  Even  to  cite  the  circumstances  on  which 
Jessica  based  her  belief  that  Hugh  knew  the  real  mur 
derer  would  weaken  his  case.  The  suggestion  would 
seem  a  mere  bungling  expedient  to  inject  the  tantalizing 

370 


AN    APPEAL    TO    (LESAR 

fillip  of  mystery  and  unbelievable  Quixotic  motive,  and, 
lacking  evidence  to  support  it,  would  touch  the  whole 
fabric  with  the  taint  of  the  meretricious.  The  sense  of 
painful  responsibility  and  hopelessness  oppressed  him, 
for,  so  far  as  real  evidence  went,  he  had  entered  on  this 
second  day  of  the  struggle  without  a  tangible  theory  of 
defense. 

As  he  turned  from  greeting  his  client,  Felder  noted 
with  surprise  that  Jessica  was  not  in  her  place.  Not  that 
he  needed  her  further  testimony,  for  he  had  drawn  from 
her  the  day  before  all  he  intended  to  utilize,  but  her 
absence  disturbed  him,  and  instinctively  he  turned  and 
looked  across  the  sea  of  faces  toward  the  door. 

Harry's  glance  followed  his,  and  a  deeper  pain  be 
leaguered  it  as  his  eyes  returned  to  the  empty  chair.  He 
saw  Mrs.  Halloran  whisper  eagerly  with  the  lawyer,  who 
turned  away  with  a  puzzled  look.  In  his  bitterness  the 
thought  came  to  him  that  the  testimony  had  sapped  her 
conviction  of  his  innocence — that  his  refusal  to  answer 
her  entreaties  had  been  the  last  straw  to  the  load  under 
which  it  had  gone  down — that  she  believed  him  indeed 
the  murderer  of  Moreau.  To  seem  the  cringing  crim 
inal,  the  pitiful  liar  and  actor  in  her  eyes !  The  thought 
stung  him.  Her  faith  had  meant  so  much ! 

The  ominous  feeling  weighed  heavily  on  Felder  when 
371 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

he  rose  to  continue  the  testimony  for  the  prisoner,  so 
rudely  disturbed  the  evening  before.  In  such  a  com 
munity  pettifogging  was  of  no  avail.  Throwing  expert 
dust  in  jurors'  eyes  would  be  worse  than  useless.  In  his 
opening  words  he  made  no  attempt  to  conceal  the  weak 
ness  of  the  defense,  evidentially  considered.  Stripped  of 
all  husk,  his  was  to  be  an  appeal  to  Caesar. 

Through  a  cloud  of  witnesses,  concisely,  consistently 
— yet  with  a  winning  tactfulness  that  disarmed  the  ob 
jections  of  the  prosecution — he  began  to  lead  them 
through  the  series  of  events  that  had  followed  the  arrival 
of  the  self-forgotten  man.  Out  of  the  mouths  of  their 
own  neighbors — Devlin,  Barney  McGinn,  Mrs.  Halloran, 
who  came  down  weeping — they  were  made  to  see,  as  in  a 
cyclorama,  the  struggle  for  rehabilitation  against  hatred 
and  suspicion,  the  courage  that  had  dared  for  a  child's 
life,  the  honesty  of  purpose  that  showed  in  self -surren 
der.  The  prisoner,  he  said,  had  recovered  his  memory 
before  the  accusation  and  asserted  his  absolute  inno 
cence.  Those  who  believed  him  guilty  of  the  murder  of 
Doctor  Moreau  must  believe  him  also  a  vulgar  liar  and 
poseur.  He  left  the  inference  clear :  If  the  prisoner  had 
fired  that  cowardly  shot,  he  knew  it  now ;  if  he  lied  now 
he  had  lied  all  along,  and  the  later  life  he  had  lived  at 
Smoky  Mountain — eloquent  of  fair-dealing,  straightfor- 

372 


AN   APPEAL   TO    CAESAR 

wardness  of  purpose,  kindliness  and  courage — had  been 
but  hypocrisy,  the  bootless  artifice  of  a  shallow  buffoon. 

It  was  an  appeal  sustained  and  moving,  addressed  to 
folk  who,  untrammelled  by  a  complex  and  variform  con 
tention,  felt  simply  and  deeply  the  simplest  and  deepest 
passions  of  human  kind.  Often,  as  the  morning  grew, 
Eelder^s  glance  turned  toward  the  empty  chair  near-by, 
and  more  than  once,  though  his  active  thought  never 
wavered  from  the  serious  business  in  hand,  his  subcon 
scious  mind  wondered.  Mrs.  Halloran  had  told  him  of 
the  note  from  Jessica — it  had  said  only  that  she  would 
return  at  the  earliest  possible  moment.  The  wonder  in 
Felder's  mind  was  general  throughout  the  court-room, 
for  none  who  had  listened  to  Jessica's  testimony — and 
the  whole  town  had  heard  it — could  doubt  the  strength 
of  her  love.  The  eyes  that  saw  the  empty  chair  were  full 
of  pity.  Only  the  knot  of  serious  faces  in  the  jury-box 
was  seldom  turned  that  way. 

The  session  was  prolonged  past  the  noon  hour,  and 
when  Felder  rested  his  case  it  seemed  that  all  that  was 
possible  had  been  said.  He  had  done  his  utmost.  He 
had  drawn  from  the  people  of  Smoky  Mountain  a  dra 
matic  story,  and  had  filled  in  its  outlines  with  color, 
force  and  feeling.  And  yet,  as  he  closed,  the  lawyer  felt 
a  sick  sense  of  failure. 

373 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

Court  adjourned  for  an  hour,  and  in  the  interim 
Fclder  remained  in  a  little  room  in  the  building,  whither 
Doctor  Brent  was  to  send  him  sandwiches  and  coffee 
from  the  hotel. 

"You  made  a  fine  effort,  Tom,"  the  latter  said,  as 
they  stood  for  a  moment  in  the  emptying  court-room. 
"You're  doing  wonders  with  no  case,  and  the  town 
ought  to  send  you  to  Congress  on  the  strength  of  it !  I 
declare,  some  of  your  evidence  made  me  feel  as  mean  as 
a  dog  about  the  rascal,  though  I  knew  all  the  time  he 
was  as  guilty  as  the  devil." 

The  lawyer  shook  his  head.  "I  don't  blame  you, 
Brent,"  he  said,  "for  you  don't  know  him  as  I  do.  I 
have  seen  much  of  him  lately,  been  often  with  him, 
watched  him  under  stress — for  he  doesn't  deceive  him 
self,  he  has  no  thought  of  acquittal !  We  none  of  us 
knew  Hugh  Stires.  We  put  him  down  for  a  shallow, 
vulgar  blackleg,  without  redeeming  qualities.  But  the 
man  we  are  trying  is  a  gentleman,  a  refined  and  culti 
vated  man  of  taste  and  feeling.  I  have  learned  his  true 
character  during  these  days." 

"Well,"  said  the  other,  "if  you  believe  in  him,  so  much 
the  better.  You'll  make  the  better  speech  for  it.  Tell  me 
one  thing — where  was  Miss  Holme?" 

"I  don't  know." 

374 


AX    APPEAL    TO    CAESAR 

The  doctor  raised  his  eyebrows.  "Good-by,"  he  said. 
"I'll  send  over  the  coffee  and  sandwiches,"  he  added  as 
he  turned  away. 

"She  thinks  he  is  guilty!"  he  said  to  himself  as  he 
walked  up  the  street.  "She  thinks  he  is  guilty,  too !" 


375 


CHAPTEK    XLVI 

FACE  TO   FACE 

To  stand  face  to  face  with  Harry  Sanderson — that 
had  been  Jessica's  sole  thought.  The  news  that  the 
bishop,  with  the  man  she  suspected,  was  speeding  toward 
her — to  pass  the  very  town  wherein  Hugh  stood  for  his 
life — seemed  a  prearrangement  of  eternal  justice.  When 
the  telegram  reached  her,  she  had  already  gone  by  Twin 
Peaks.  To  proceed  would  be  to  pass  the  coming  train. 
At  a  farther  station,  however,  she  was  able  to  take  a 
night  train  back,  arriving  again  at  Twin  Peaks  in  the 
gray  dawn  of  the  next  morning.  At  the  dingy  station 
hotel  there  she  undressed  and  lay  down,  but  her  nerves 
were  quivering  and  she  could  not  close  her  eyes.  Toward 
noon  she  dressed  and  forced  herself  to  breakfast,  real 
izing  the  need  of  strength.  She  spent  the  rest  of  the 
time  of  waiting  walking  up  and  down  in  the  crisp  air, 
which  steadied  her  nerves  and  gave  her  a  measure  of 
control. 

When  the  train  for  which  she  waited  came  in,  the  cur 
tained  car  at  its  end,  she  did  not  wait  for  the  bishop  to 

376 


FACE   TO    FACE 

find  her  on  the  platform,,  but  stepped  aboard  and  made 
her  way  slowly  back.  It  started  again  as  she  threaded 
the  last  Pullman,  to  find  the  bishop  on  its  rear  platform 
peering  out  anxiously  at  the  receding  station. 

He  took  both  her  hands  and  drew  her  into  the  empty 
drawing-room.  He  was  startled  at  her  pallor.  "I  know," 
he  said  pityingly.  "I  have  heard." 

She  winced.   "Does  Aniston  know  ?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered.    "Yesterday's  newspapers  told  it." 

She  put  her  hand  on  his  arm.  "Can  you  guess  why  I 
was  coming  home?"  she  asked.  "It  was  to  tell  Harry 
Sanderson!  I  know  of  the  fire,"  she  went  on  quickly, 
"and  of  his  injury.  I  can  guess  you  want  to  spare  him 
strain  or  excitement,  but  I  must  tell  him !" 

"It  is  a  matter  of  physical  strength,  Jessica,"  he  said. 
"He  has  been  a  sick  man.  Forgive  my  saying  it,  child, 
but — what  good  could  it  do  ?" 

"Believe,  oh,  you  must  believe,"  she  pleaded,  "that  I 
do  not  ask  this  lightly,  that  I  have  a  purpose  that  makes 
it  necessary.  It  means  so  much — more  than  my  life  to 
me !  Why,  I  have  waited  here  at  Twin  Peaks  all  through 
the  night,  till  now,  when  this  very  day  and  hour  they 
are  trying  him  there  at  Smoky  Mountain!  You  must 
let  me  tell  him!" 

He  reflected  a  moment.  He  thought  he  guessed  what 
377 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

was  in  her  mind.  If  there  was  any  one  who  had  ever 
had  an  influence  over  Hugh  for  good,  it  was  Harry 
Sanderson.  He  himself,  he  thought,  had  none.  Per 
haps,  remembering  their  old  comradeship,  she  was  long 
ing  now  to  have  this  influence  exerted,  to  bring  Hugh 
to  a  better  mind — thinking  of  his  eternal  welfare,  of  his 
making  his  peace  with  his  Maker.  Beneath  his  prosy 
churchmanship  and  somewhat  elaborate  piety,  the  bishop 
had  a  spirituality  almost  medieval  in  its  simplicity. 
Perhaps  this  was  God's  way.  His  eyes  lighted. 

"Very  well,"  he  said.  "Come,"  and  led  the  way  into 
the  car. 

Jessica  followed,  her  hands  clenched  tightly.  She  saw 
the  couch,  the  profile  on  its  cushions  turned  toward  the 
window  where  forest  and  stream  slipped  past — a  face 
curiously  like  Hugh's!  Yet  it  was  different,  lacking 
the  other's  strength,  even  its  refinement.  And  this  man 
had  molded  Hugh !  These  vague  thoughts  lost  them 
selves  instantly  in  the  momentous  surmise  that  filled 
her  imagination.  The  bishop  put  out  his  hand  and 
touched  the  relaxed  arm. 

The  trepidation  that  darted  into  the  bandaged  face  as 
it  turned  upon  the  girlish  figure,  the  frosty  fear  that 
blanched  the  haggard  countenance,  spoke  Hugh's  sur 
prise  and  dread.  It  was  she,  and  she  knew  the  real 

378 


FACE    TO    FACE 

Harry  Sanderson  was  in  Smoky  Mountain.  Had  she 
heard  of  the  chapel  fire,  guessed  the  imposture,  and  come 
to  denounce  him,  the  guilty  husband  she  had  such  rea 
son  to  hate  ?  The  twitching  limbs  stiffened.  "Jessica !" 
he  said  in  a  hoarse  whisper. 

For  an  instant  a  fierce  sense  of  triumph  flamed 
through  her  every  nerve.  But  a  cold  doubt  chilled  it. 
Her  suspicion  might  be  the  veriest  chimera.  It  seemed 
suddenly  too  wild  for  belief.  She  sat  down  abruptly 
and  for  a  fleeting  moment  hid  her  face.  The  bishop 
touched  the  bowed,  brown  head. 

"Harry,"  he  said,  "Jessica  is  in  great  trouble.  She 
has  come  with  sad  news.  Hugh,  her  husband,  your  old 
college  mate,  is  in  a  terrible  position.  He  is  accused  of 
murder.  I  kept  the  newspapers  from  you  to-day  because 
they  told  of  it." 

She  had  caught  the  meaning  of  the  pity  in  his  tone — 
for  her,  not  for  Hugh!  "Ah,"  she  cried  passionately, 
lifting  her  head,  "but  they  did  not  tell  it  all !  Did  they 
tell  you  that  he  is  unjustly,  wickedly  accused  by  an 
enemy  ?  That,  though  they  may  convict  him,  he  is  inno 
cent — innocent  ?" 

The  bishop  looked  at  her  in  surprise.  In  spite  of  all 
the  past — the  shameful,  conscienceless  past  and  her  own 
wrong — she  loved  and  believed  in  her  husband ! 

379 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

Hugh's  hand  lifted,  wavered  an  instant  before  his 
brow.  Did  she  say  he  was  innocent?  "I  don't — under 
stand/'  he  said  hoarsely. 

Jessica's  wide  eyes  fastened  on  his  as  though  to  search 
his  secret  soul.  "I  will  tell  it  all,"  she  said,  "then  you 
will  understand."  The  bishop  drew  a  chair  close,  but 
her  gaze  did  not  waver  from  the  face  on  the  cushions — 
the  face  which  she  must  read ! 

As  she  told  the  broken  tale  the  car  was  still,  save  for 
the  labored,  irregular  breathing  of  the  prostrate  man, 
and  the  muffled  roar  that  penetrated  the  walls,  a  multi 
tudinous,  elfin  din.  Once  the  swinging  canary  broke 
forth  into  liquid  warbling,  as  though  in  all  the  world 
were  no  throe  of  body  or  dolor  of  mind.  In  that  telling 
Jessica's  mind  traversed  wastes  of  alternate  certainty 
and  doubt,  as  she  hung  upon  the  look  of  the  man  who 
listened — a  look  that  merged  slowly  into  a  fearful  un 
derstanding.  Hugh  understood  now ! 

Jessica  had  believed  him  to  be  her  husband,  and  she 
believed  so  still.  And  Harry  did  not  intend  to  tell.  He 
was  safe  .  .  .  safe!  In  the  reaction  from  his  fear, 
Hugh  felt  sick  and  faint. 

The  bishop  had  been  listening  in  some  anxiety,  both 
for  her  and  for  his  charge.  There  was  a  strained  in 
tensity  in  her  manner  now  that  betokened  almost  un- 

380 


FACE   TO   FACE 

balance — so  it  seemed  to  him.  The  side-lights  he  had 
had  of  Hugh's  career  led  him  to  believe  him  incapable 
of  such  a  self-sacrifice  as  her  tale  recited.  A  strange 
power  there  was  in  woman's  love ! 

"You  see/'  she  ended,  "that  is  why  I  know  he  is  inno 
cent.  You  can  not" — her  eyes  held  Hugh's — "you  can 
not  doubt  it,  can  you  ?" 

Hugh's  tongue  wet  his  parched  lips.  A  tremor  ran 
through  him.  He  did  not  answer. 

Jessica  started  to  her  feet.  Self-possession  was  falling 
from  her;  she  was  fighting  to  seize  the  vital  knowledge 
that  evaded  her.  She  held  out  her  hand — in  the  palm 
lay  a  small  emblem  of  gold. 

"By  this  cross/'  she  cried  with  desperate  earnestness, 
"I  ask  you  for  the  truth.  It  is  his  life  or  death — Hugh's 
life  or  death!  He  did  not  kill  Doctor  Moreau.  Who 
did?" 

Hugh  had  shrunk  back  on  the  couch,  his  face  ghastly. 
"I  know  nothing — nothing!"  he  stammered.  "Do  not 
ask  me!" 

The  bishop  had  risen  in  alarm;  he  thought  her  hys 
terical.  "Jessica !  Jessica !"  he  exclaimed.  He  threw  his 
arm  about  her  and  led  her  from  the  couch.  "You  don't 
know  what  you  are  saying.  You  are  beside  yourself." 
He  forced  her  into  the  drawing-room  and  made  her  sit 

381 


SATAN"    SANDERSON 

clown.  She  was  tense  and  quivering.  The  cross  fell  from 
her  hand  and  he  stooped  and  picked  it  up. 

"Try  to  calm  yourself/'  he  said,  "to  think  of  other 
things  for  a  few  moments.  This  little  cross — I  wonder 
how  you  come  to  have  it?  I  gave  it  to  Sanderson  last 
May  to  commemorate  his  ordination."  He  twisted  it 
open.  "See,  here  is  the  date,  May  twenty-eighth — that 
was  the  day  I  gave  it  to  him." 

She  gave  a  quick  gasp  and  the  last  vestige  of  color 
faded  from  her  cheek.  She  looked  at  him  in  a  stricken 
way.  "Last  May!"  she  said  faintly.  Harry  Sanderson 
had  been  in  Aniston,  then,  on  the  day  Doctor  Moreau 
had  been  murdered.  Her  house  of  cards  fell.  She  had 
been  mistaken!  She  leaned  her  head  back  against  the 
cushion  and  closed  her  eyes. 

Presently  she  felt  a  cold  glass  touch  her  lips.  "Here 
is  some  water,"  the  bishop's  voice  said.  "You  are  better, 
are  you  not  ?  Poor  child !  You  have  been  through  a  ter 
rible  strain.  I  would  give  the  world  to  help  you  if  I 
could!" 

He  left  her,  and  she  sat  dully  trying  to  think.  The 
regular  jar  of  the  trucks  had  set  itself  to  a  rhythm — no 
hope,  no  hope,  no  hope !  She  knew  now  that  there  was 
none.  When  the  bishop  reentered  she  did  not  turn  her 
head.  He  sat  beside  her  a  while  and  she  was  aware 

382 


FACE   TO   FACE 

again  of  his  voice,  speaking  soothingly.  At  moments 
thereafter  he  was  there,  at  others  she  knew  that  she  was 
alone,  but  she  was  unconscious  of  the  flight  of  time.  She 
knew  only  that  the  day  was  fading.  On  the  chilly  whirl 
ing  landscape  she  saw  only  a  crowded  room,  a  jury-box, 
a  judge's  bench,  and  Hugh  before  it,  listening  to  the 
sentence  that  would  take  him  from  her  for  ever.  The 
bright  sunlight  was  mercilessly,  satanically  cruel,  and 
God  a  sneering  monster  turning  a  crank. 

Into  her  conscious  view  grew  distant  snowy  ranges, 
hills  unrolling  at  their  feet,  a  straggling  town,  a  staring 
white  court-house  and  a  grim  low  building  beside  it. 
She  rose  stumblingly,  the  train  quivering  to  the  brakes, 
as  the  bishop  entered. 

"This  is  Smoky  Mountain,"  she  said  with  numb  lips. 
"That  is  the  building  where  he  is  being  tried.  I  am  go 
ing  there  now." 

The  bishop  opened  the  door.  "We  stop  here  twenty 
minutes,"  he  said.  "I  will  walk  a  little  way  with  you." 


383 


CHAPTER    XLVII 

BETWEEN   THE  MILLSTONES 

Hugh's  haggard  face  peered  after  them  through  a 
rift  in  a  window  curtain.  What  could  she  have  suspect 
ed?  Not  the  truth!  And  only  that  could  betray  him. 
Presently  the  bishop  would  return,  the  train  would  start 
again,  and  this  spot  of  terror  would  be  behind  him. 
What  had  he  to  do  with  Harry  Sanderson  ? 

He  bethought  himself  suddenly  of  the  door — if  some 
one  should  come  in  upon  him !  With  a  qualm  of  fear  he 
stood  up,  staggered  to  it  and  turned  the  key  in  the  lock. 
There  was  not  the  wonted  buzz  about  the  station;  the 
place  was  silent,  save  for  the  throb  of  the  halted  engine, 
and  the  shadow  of  the  train  on  the  frosty  platform 
quivered  like  a  criminal.  A  block  away  he  saw  the  court 
house — knots  of  people  were  standing  about  its  door, 
waiting  for  what  ?  A  fit  of  trembling  seized  him. 

All  his  years  Hugh  had  been  a  moral  coward.  Life  to 
him  had  been  sweet  for  the  grosser,  material  pleasures 
it  held.  He  had  cared  for  nobody,  had  held  nothing 
sacred.  When  his  sins  had  found  him  out,  he  had  not 

384 


BETWEEN    THE    MILLSTONES 

repented;  lie  had  only  cursed  the  accident  of  discovery. 
The  sincerest  feeling  of  regret  he  had  known  had  been 
in  the  chapel  when  he  had  thought  of  his  dead  mother. 
Since  one  dismal  night  on  Smoky  Mountain,  dread,  dog 
ging  and  relentless,  had  been  his  hateful  bedfellow.  He 
had  now  only  to  keep  silence,  let  Harry  Sanderson  pay 
the  penalty,  and  he  need  dread  no  more.  Hugh  Stires, 
to  the  persuasion  of  the  law,  would  be  dead.  As  soon  as 
might  be  he  could  disappear — as  the  rector  of  St.  James 
had  disappeared  before.  He  might  change  his  name  and 
live  at  ease  in  some  other  quarter  of  the  world,  his  alarm 
laid  for  ever. 

But  a  worse  thing  would  haunt  him,  to  scare  his  sleep. 
He  would  be  doubly  blood-guilty !  » 

In  the  awful  moment  while  he  clung  to  the  iron  bars 
of  the  collapsing  rose-window,  with  the  flames  clutching 
at  him,  Hugh  had  looked  into  hell,  and  shivered  before 
the  judgment :  The  wages  of  sin  is  death.  In  that  fiery 
ordeal  the  cheapness  and  swagger,  the  ostentation  and 
self-esteem  had  burned  away,  and  his  soul  had  stood 
naked  as  a  winter  wood.  Dying  had  not  then  been  the 
Austere  Terror.  What  came  after — that  had  appalled 
him.  Yet  Harry  Sanderson  was  not  afraid  of  the  here 
after;  he  chose  death  calmly,  knowing  that  he,  Hugh, 
was  unfit  to  die ! 

385 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

He  thought  of  the  little  gold  cross  Jessica  had  held 
before  him.  The  last  time  he  had  seen  it  was  during  that 
memorable  game  when  Harry  had  set  it  on  the  table.  In 
his  pocket  was  a  battered  red  disk — a  reminder  of  the 
days  that  Harry  had  won,  which  had  never  been  ren 
dered.  He  thought  of  the  stabbing  agony  that  had  come 
and  come  again,  to  strike  each  time  more  deeply.  The 
death  that  he  had  cheated  in  the  chapel  might  be  near 
him  now.  But  whenever  death  should  come,  what  should 
he  say  when  he  stood  before  his  Judge,  with  such  a  fear 
ful  double  burden  on  his  soul  ?  He  was  horribly  afraid ! 

Suppose  he  waited.  Harry  might  be  convicted,  sen 
tenced,  but  he  could  save  him  at  the  last  moment.  When 
he  was  safe  on  his  way  to  South  America,  he  could 
write  the  bishop — beg  him  to  go  to  Smoky  Mountain 
and  convince  himself.  But  how  soon  would  that  be  ?  It 
would  be  long,  long — and  justice  was  swift.  And  what 
if  death  should  take  him  unawares  beforehand?  It 
would  be  too  late  then,  too  late  for  ever  and  ever ! 

Suppose  he  told  the  truth  now  and  saved  Harry.  He 
had  never  done  a  brave  deed  for  the  sake  of  truth  or 
righteousness,  or  for  the  love  of  any  human  being,  but 
he  could  do  one  now.  For  the  one  red  counter  that  had 
been  a  symbol  of  a  day  of  evil  living,  he  could  render  a 
deed  that  would  make  requital  for  those  unpaid  days! 

386 


BETWEEN    THE    MILLSTONES 

He  would  not  have  played  the  coward's  part.  It  would 
repair  the  wrong  he  had  done  Jessica.  He  would  have 
made  expiation.  Forgiveness  and  pity,  not  reproaches 
and  shame,  would  follow  him.  And  it  would  balance, 
perhaps,  the  one  dreadful  count  that  stood  against  him. 
He  thought  of  the  scaffold  and  shivered.  Yet  there  was 
a  more  terrible  thought:  It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  fall 
into  the  hands  of  the  living  God! 

He  made  his  way  again  to  the  door  and  unlocked  it. 
It  was  only  to  cross  that  space,  to  speak,  and  then  the 
grim  brick  building — and  the  penalty. 

With  a  hoarse  cry  he  slammed  the  door  to  and  fran 
tically  locked  it.  The  edge  of  the  searching  pain  was 
upon  him  again.  He  stumbled  back  to  the  couch  and  fell 
across  it  face  down,  dragging  the  cushions  in  frantic 
haste  over  his  head,  to  shut  out  the  sick  throbbing  of 
the  steam,  that  seemed  shuddering  at  the  fate  his  cower 
ing  soul  dared  not  face. 

The  groups  outside  of  the  court-house  made  way  def 
erentially  for  Jessica,  but  she  was  unconscious  of  it. 
Some  one  asked  a  question  on  the  steps,  and  she  heard 
the  answer :  "The  State  has  just  finished,  and  the  judge 
is  charging." 

The  narrow  hall  was  filled,  and  though  all  who  saw 
387 


SATAN    SANDERSON 

gave  her  instant  place,  the  space  beyond  the  inner  door 
was  crowded  beyond  the  possibility  of  passage.  She 
could  see  the  judge's  bench,  with  its  sedate  gray-bearded 
figure,  the  jury-box  at  the  left,  the  moving  restless  faces 
about  it,  set  like  a  living  mosaic.  Only  the  table  where 
the  lawyers  and  the  prisoner  sat  she  could  not  see,  or 
the  empty  chair  where  she  had  sat  yesterday.  What  had 
Hugh  thought,  she  wondered  dully,  when  he  had  not 
seen  her  there  that  day  ?  Had  he  thought  that  her  trust 
had  failed? 

She  became  aware  suddenly  that  the  figure  at  the 
high  bench  was  speaking,  had  been  speaking  all  along. 
She  could  not  think  clearly,  and  her  brain  struggled 
with  the  incisive  matter-of-fact  sentences. 

"With  the  prisoner's  later  career  in  Smoky  Mountain 
they  had  nothing  to  do,  nor  had  the  law.  The  question  it 
asked — the  only  question  it  asked — was,  did  he  kill 
Moreau?  They  might  be  loath  to  believe  the  same  man 
capable  of  such  contradictory  acts — the  courageous  sav 
ing  of  a  child  from  death,  for  example,  and  the  shooting 
down  of  a  fellow-mortal  in  cold  blood — but  it  had  been 
truly  said  that  such  contrasts  were  not  impossible,  nay, 
were  even  matters  of  common  observation.  Prejudice 
and  bias  aside,  and  sympathy  and  liking  aside,  they 
constituted  a  tribunal  of  justice.  This  the  State  had  a 

388 


BETWEEN    THE    MILLSTONES 

right  to  demand,  and  this  they,  the  jury,  had  made 
solemn  oath  to  give." 

The  words  had  no  meaning  for  her  ears.  "What  did 
he  say?"  she  whispered  to  herself  piteously. 

In  her  abyss  of  torture  she  felt  the  tense  expectancy 
stirring  audibly  in  the  room  like  a  still  breeze  in  forest 
leaves — saw  the  averted  faces  of  the  jury  as  they  rose  to 
file  out.  She  caught  but  a  glimpse  of  the  prisoner,  as 
the  sheriff  touched  his  arm  and  led  the  way  quickly  to 
the  door  through  which  he  had  been  brought. 

It  opened  and  closed  upon  them,,  and  the  tension  of 
the  packed  room  broke  all  at  once  in  a  great  respiration 
of  relief  and  a  buzz  of  conversation. 

A  voice  spoke  beside  her.  It  was  Doctor  Brent. 
"Come  with  me,"  he  said.  "Felder  asked  me  to  watch 
for  you.  We  can  wait  in  the  judge's  room." 


389 


CHAPTER   XLVIII 

THE   VERDICT 

Meanwhile  in  the  narrow  cell  Harry  was  alone  with 
his  bitterness.  His  judicial  sense,  keenly  alive,  from 
the  very  first  had  appreciated  the  woeful  weakness,  evi 
dentially  speaking,  of  his  position.  He  had  no  illusions 
on  this  score.  A  little  while — after  such  deliberation  as 
was  decent  and  seemly — and  he  would  be  a  condemned 
criminal,  waiting  in  the  shadow  of  the  hempen  noose. 
In  such  localities  justice  was  swift.  There  would  be 
scant  time  between  verdict  and  penalty — not  enough, 
doubtless,  for  the  problem  to  solve  itself.  For  the  only 
solution  possible  was  Hugh's  dying  in  the  hospital  at 
Aniston.  So  long  as  the  other  lived,  he  must  play  out 
the  role. 

And  if  Hugh  did  die,  but  died  too  late?  What  a 
satire  on  truth  and  justice!  The  same  error  which  put 
the  rope  about  his  own  neck  would  fold  the  real  Hugh 
in  the  odor  of  sanctity.  He  would  lie  in  the  little  jail 
yard  in  a  felon's  grave,  and  Hugh  in  the  cemetery  on 
the  hill,  beneath  a  marble  monument  erected  by  St. 

390 


THE   VEEDICT 

James  Parish  to  the  Eeverend  Henry  Sanderson.  He 
was  in  an  impasse.  In  the  dock,  or  in  the  cell  with  the 
death-watch  sitting  at  its  door,  it  was  all  one.  He  had 
elected  the  path,  and  if  it  led  to  the  bleak  edge  of  life, 
to  the  barren  abyss  of  shame,  he  must  tread  it. 

His  own  life — he  had  come  in  his  thinking  to  a  point 
where  that  mattered  least  of  all.  Harry  Sanderson,  the 
vanished  rector  of  St.  James,  mattered.  And  Jessica! 
On  the  cot  lay  a  slender  blue-bound  book — Tennyson's 
Becket.  She  had  sent  it  to  him,  in  a  hamper  of  her 
favorites,  some  days  before.  He  picked  it  up  and  held 
it  in  his  hand,  touching  the  limp  leather  gently.  It  was 
as  soft  as  her  cheek,  and  there  was  about  the  leaves  a 
hint  of  that  intangible  perfume  that  his  mind  always 
associated  with  her — 

.    .    .    the  smell  of  the  jasmin-flower 
That  she  used  to  wear  in  her  breast! 

Far  more  than  his  life,  more  than  the  name  and  fame 
of  the  Keverend  Henry  Sanderson,  she  mattered !  Could 
he  write  it  for  her  eye,  the  whole  truth,  so  that  sometime 
— afterward — the  bishop  might  know,  and  the  blot  be 
erased  from  his  career  ?  Impossible !  With  Hugh  buried 
in  Aniston  and  he  in  Smoky  Mountain,  who  was  there 
but  would  smile  at  such  a  tale?  She  might  shout  it  to 

391 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

the  world,  and  it  would  answer  with  derision.  And  what 
comfort  would  the  truth  be  to  her  ? 

Could  he  say  to  her :  'Tour  husband  lies  dead  under 
my  tombstone,  not  innocent,  but  unregenerate  and  vile. 
I,  who  you  think  am  your  husband,  am  not  and  never 
was.  You  have  come  to  my  call — but  I  am  nothing  to 
you.  You  are  the  wife  of  the  guilty  murderer  of 
Moreau!"  Could  he  leave  this  behind  him,  and,  pass 
ing  from  her  life  for  ever,  turn  the  memory  of  their 
love  into  an  irremediable  bitterness  ?  No — no !  Better 
never  to  tell  her !  Better  to  let  her  live  her  life,  holding 
her  faith  and  dream,  treasurer g  her  belief  in  his  regen 
eration  and  innocence ! 

He  thought  of  the  closing  chapter  in  his  life  at  Anis- 
ton,  when  in  that  hour  of  his  despair  he  had  prayed  by 
his  study  desk.  The  words  he  had  then  said  aloud  re 
curred  to  him :  "If  I  am  delivered,  it  must  be  by  some 
way  of  Thine  Own  that  I  can  not  conceive,  for  I  can  not 
help  myself/'  He  was  powerless  to  help  himself  still. 
He  had  given  over  his  life  into  the  keeping  of  a  i'ower 
in  which  his  better  manhood  had  trusted.  If  it  exacted 
the  final  tribute  for  those  ribald  years  of  Satan  Sander 
son,  the  price  would  be  paid ! 

A  step  came  in  the  corridor — a  voice  spoke  his  name. 
The  summons  had  come.  As  he  laid  the  blue  book  back 

392 


THE   VERDICT 

on  the  cot,  its  closing  words — the  dying  utterance  of  the 
martyred  Becket — flashed  through  his  mind,  the  per 
sonal  cry  of  his  own  soul : 

"Into  Thy  hands,  0  Lord— into  Thy  hands !" 

Before  the  opening  door  the  hum  of  voices  in  the 
court-room  sank  to  stillness  itself.  The  jury  had  taken 
their  places;  their  looks  were  sober  and  downcast.  The 
judge  was  in  his  seat,  his  hand  combing  his  beard. 
Harry  faced  him  calmly.  The  door  of  a  side  room  was 
partly  open  and  a  girl's  white  face  looked  in,  but  he  did 
not  see. 

"Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  have  you  arrived  at  a  ver 
dict?" 

"We  have." 

There  was  a  confusion  in  the  hall — abrupt  voices  and 
the  sound  of  feet.  The  crowd  stirred  and  the  judge 
f rowningly  lifted  his  gavel. 

"What  say  you,  guilty  or  not  guilty  ?" 

The  foreman  did  not  answer.  He  was  leaning  for 
ward,  looking  over  the  heads  of  the  crowd.  The  judge 
stood  up.  People  turned,  and  the  room  was  suddenly 
a-rustle  with  surprised  movement.  The  crowd  at  the 
back  of  the  room  parted,  and  up  the  center  aisle,  toward 
the  judge's  desk,  staggered  a  figure — a  man  whose  face, 

393 


SATAN   SANDERSON 

ghastly  and  convulsed,  was  partly  swathed  in  bandages. 
At  the  door  of  the  judge's  room  a  girl  stood  transfixed 
and  staring. 

The  crowd  gasped.  They  saw  the  familiar  profile,  a 
replica  of  the  prisoner's — the  mark  that  slanted  across 
the  brow — the  eyes  preternaturally  bright  and  fevered. 

A  pale-faced,  breathless  man  in  clerical  dress  pushed 
forward  through  the  press,  as  the  figure  stopped  .  .  . 
thrust  out  his  hands  blindly. 

"Not — guilty,  your  Honor  I"  he  said. 

A  cry  came  from  the  prisoner  at  the  bar.  He  leaped 
toward  him  as  he  fell  and  caught  him  in  his  arms. 


394 


CHAPTER    XLIX 

THE    CRIMSON   DISK 

The  group  in  the  judge's  room  was  hushed  in  awe 
struck  silence.  The  door  was  shut,  but  through  the 
panels,  from  the  court-room,  came  the  murmur  of  many 
wondering  voices.  By  the  sofa  on  which  lay  the  man  who 
had  made  expiation  stood  the  bishop  and  Harry  Sander 
son.  Jessica  knelt  beside  it,  and  the  judge  and  those 
who  stood  with  him  in  the  background  knew  that  the 
curtain  was  falling  upon  a  strange  and  tangled  drama 
of  life  and  death. 

After  the  one  long,  sobbing  cry  of  realization,  through 
out  the  excitement  and  confusion,  Jessica  had  been 
strangely  calm.  She  read  the  swift  certainty  in  Doctor 
Brent's  face,  and  she  felt  a  painful  thankfulness.  The 
last  appeal  would  not  be  to  man's  justice,  but  to  God's 
mercy!  The  memories  of  the  old  blind  days  and  the 
knowledge  that  this  man — not  the  one  to  whom  she  had 
given  her  love  at  Smoky  Mountain,  at  whom  she  dared 
not  look — had  then  been  her  lover,  rolled  about  her  in  a 
stinging  mist.  But  as  she  knelt  by  the  sofa  the  hand  that 

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SATAN    SANDERSON 

chafed  the  nerveless  one  was  firm,  and  she  wiped  the 
cold  lips  deftly  and  tenderly. 

Hugh's  eyes  were  filming.  That  harrowing  struggle 
of  soul,  that  convulsive  effort  of  the  injured  body,  had 
demanded  its  price.  The  direful  agony  and  its  weak 
ness  had  seized  him — his  stiffening  fingers  were  slipping 
from  the  ledge  of  life,  and  he  knew  it. 

He  heard  the  bishop's  earnest  voice  speaking  from  the 
void :  "Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a  man 
lay  down  his  life  for  hiis  friends!"  The  words  roused 
his  fading  senses,  called  them  back  to  the  outpost  of 
feeling. 

"Not  because  I — loved,"  he  said.  "It — was  because — 
I — was  afraid!" 

False  as  his  habit  of  life  had  been,  in  that  moment 
only  the  bare  truth  remained.  With  a  last  effort  the 
dying  man  thrust  his  hand  into  his  pocket,  drew  out  a 
small,  battered,  red  disk,  and  laid  it  in  the  other's  hand. 
He  smiled. 

"Satan — "  he  whispered,  as  Harry  bent  over  him,  and 
the  flicker  of  light  fell  in  his  eyes,  "do  you — think  it 
will — count — when  I  cash  in?" 

But  Harry's  answer  Hugh  did  not  hear.  He  had 
passed  out  of  the  sound  of  mortal  speech  for  ever. 


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CHAPTER   L 

WHEN   DREAMS   COME  TRUE 

There  came  a  day  when  the  brown  ravines  of  Smoky 
Mountain  laughed  in  genial  sunshine,  when  the  tangled 
thickets,  and  the  foliaged  reaches,  painted  with  the 
cardinal  and  bishop's-purple  of  late  autumn,  flushed  and 
stirred  to  the  touch  of  their  golden  lover,  and  the  silver 
water  gushing  through  the  flumes  sang  to  a  quicker 
melody.  There  was  no  wind ;  everywhere,  save  for  the 
breathing  life  of  the  forest,  was  dreamy  beauty  and 
waiting  peace. 

In  the  soft  stillness  Harry  stood  on  the  doorstep  of 
the  hillside  cabin — for  the  last  time.  Below  him  in  the 
gulch  the  light  glanced  and  sparkled  from  the  running 
flume,  and  beyond  glimmered  the  long  street  of  the  town 
where  the  dead  past  of  Satan  Sanderson  had  been  buried 
for  ever  and  the  old  remorseful  pain  of  conscience  had 
found  its  surcease.  In  that  last  lack-luster  year  before 
the  rector  of  the  old  St.  James  had  been  snuffed  out  in 
the  wild  motor-ride,  he  had  come  to  doubt  the  ultimate 
Prescience  and  Purpose.  How  small  and  futile  now 

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SATAN    SANDERSON 

seemed  those  doubts  in  face  of  the  new  conception  he 
had  apprehended,  in  the  tacit  acceptance  of  a  watchful 
Will  and  Plan  not  his  own. 

Here  had  been  the  theater  of  his  pain  and  his  tempta 
tion.  Sitting  on  that  very  spot,  with  the  wise  stars  over 
head,  he  had  drawn  from  Old  Despair's  violin  the  strain 
that  had  brought  him  Jessica,  her  hand  in  his,  her  head 
upon  his  breast!  In  the  far  distance,  a  tender  haze 
softening  their  outline,  stood  the  violet  silhouette  of  the 
enduring  ranges,  and  far  beyond  them  lay  Aniston, 
where  waited  his  newer  life,  his  newer,  better  work — 
and  the  hope  that  was  the  April  of  his  dreams. 

Since  that  tragic  day  in  the  court-room  he  had  seen 
Jessica  once  only — in  the  hour  when  the  bishop's  solemn 
"dust  to  dust"  had  been  spoken  above  the  man  who  had 
been  her  husband.  One  thought  had  comforted  him — 
the  town  of  Smoky  Mountain  had  never  known,  need 
never  know,  the  secret  of  her  wifehood.  And  Aniston 
was  far  away.  About  the  coming  of  Hugh  injured  and 
dying  to  his  rescue,  would  be  thrown  a  glamour  of 
knight-errantry  that  would  bespeak  charity  of  judgment. 
When  Jessica  went  back  to  the  white  house  in  the  aspens 
she  would  meet  only  tenderness  and  sympathy.  And  that 
was  well. 

He  shut  the  door  of  his  cabin  and,  whistling  to  his 
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WHEN   DREAMS'   COME    TRUE 

dog,  climbed  the  steep  path,  where  the  wrinkled  creeper 
flung  its  new  splash  of  scarlet,  and  along  the  trail  to  the 
Knob,  under  the  needled  song  of  the  redwoods.  There 
in  the  dappled  shade  stood  Jessica's  rock-statue,  and 
now  it  looked  upon  two  mounds.  The  Prodigal  had  re 
turned  at  last,  father  and  son  rested  side  by  side,  and 
that,  too,  was  well. 

He  went  slowly  through  the  brown  hollows  to  the 
winding  mountain  road,  crossed  it,  and  entered  the 
denser  forest.  He  wanted  to  see  once  more  the  dear  spot 
where  he  and  Jessica  had  met — that  deep,  sweet  day  be 
fore  the  rude  awakening.  He  walked  on  in  a  reverie; 
his  thoughts  were  very  far  away. 

He  stopped  suddenly — there  before  him  was  the  little 
knoll  where  she  had  stood  waiting,  on  the  threshold  of 
his  Palace  of  Enchantment,  that  one  roseate  morning. 
And  she  was  there  to-day — not  standing  with  parted 
lips  and  eager  eyes  under  the  twittering  trees,  but  lying 
face  down  on  the  moss,  her  red  bronze  hair  shaming  the 
gold  of  the  fallen  leaves. 

There  was  a  gesture  in  the  outstretched  arms  that 
caught  at  his  heart.  He  stepped  forward,  and  at  the 
sound  she  looked  up  startled. 

He  saw  the  creeping  color  that  mounted  to  her  brow, 
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SATAN   SANDERSON 

the  proud  yet  passionate  hunger  of  her  eyes.   He  dropped 
on  his  knees  and  took  her  hands  and  kissed  them : 

"My  dear  love  that  is!"  he  whispered.    "My  dearer 
wife  that  is  to  be!" 


THE   END 


YB 


